Preamble

The House met—after the Adjournment on Tuesday, 22nd January—at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

MEMBERS SWORN.

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath:

Right honourable Sir Robert Stevenson Horne, G.B.E., K.C., Burgh of Glasgow (Hillhead Division).

Captain Charles Curtis Craig, County of Antrim.

John Edward Sutton, esquire, Borough of Manchester (Clayton Division).

NEW WRIT.

For the Borough of Burnley, in the room of David Daniel Irving, esquire, deceased.—[Mr. Spoor.]

Oral Answers to Questions — CARRIAGE OF GOODS BY SEA BILL.

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN: 1.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether it is intended to reintroduce the Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill which was reported by a Select Committee of both Houses in July last; and whether, if this is the case, facilities will be given for its rapid passage into Law?

Mr. RATHBONE: 3.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will, at an early date, reintroduce the Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill, which, but for the Dissolution last November, would, as an agreed Measure, already be on the Statute Book?

The PRISIDENT of the BORAD of TRADE (Mr. Webb): It is proposed introduce this Bill, either here or in another place, at an early date, and to proceed with it as rapidly as the other business of Parliament may permit.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHILLED BEEF.

Dr. CHAPPLE: 2.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether any experimental investigation is taking place in order to ascertain whether beef imported from Australia and New Zealand can be shipped in a chilled instead of a frozen condition?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Mr. Wheatley): Arrangements have been made for an experimental shipment of chilled beef, treated by a special preservative process, to be sent from New Zealand to this country, for the purpose of examination on behalf of the Departmental Committee which is at present considering the use of preservatives in food.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNAL COMBUSTION FUEL.

Mr. HARDIE: 4.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the increased use of internal combustion engines, he will take measures for the production of such fuel in this country?

Mr. WEBB: The Government is taking a leading part in the research which is taking place on this subject, and l would refer my hon. Friend to the reports of the Fuel Research Board issued by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Moreover, particular attention is being devoted, both by Government and by private interests, to the carbonisation of coal at low temperature, but it would be premature to say that the technical and economic problems involved have been completely solved.

Mr. HARDIE: Having read all the reports, and more than that, studied them, and being familial with all that has been done in the way of research on the question, may I ask if the right hon. Gentleman is now prepared, in view of the fact that the price of petrol is being increased—not because it, is scarce—and in view of the fact that more and more every day we are dependent upon these
other supplies of fuel, he will now get the Government to begin manufacturing at once?

Lieut.-Colonel FREMANTLE: Speaking from an unaccustomed place where one's silvery tones may yet be heard in the House, is it not well that the Government should leave the production of internal combustion fuel or any other kind of fuel to those whose business it is to produce it?

Mr. SPEAKER: The last question is in the nature of an argument.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

HUMBER ESTUARY (TUNNEL).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 5.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will consider the desirability of the construction of a road and railway tunnel under the estuary of the Humber with a view of relieving unemployment and improving communications?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Gosling): I have been asked to answer this question. No definite proposals for a tunnel under the Humber have at any time been presented to my Department. If the authorities concerned desire to submit such proposals, they shall receive careful consideration.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Will the hon. Gentleman ask his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to receive a deputation of those interested in this work, at an early date?

Mr. GOSLING: Most certainly.

RAILWAY STOPPAGE (COST).

Captain TERRELL: 6.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can give any estimate of the loss to the country caused by the railway strike in regard to trade stoppages and hindrances to export, as well as to the losses in wages to the men concerned?

Mr. WEBB: I am afraid that the statistical information available does not enable me to form even an approximate estimate of the loss caused to the nation by interruptions of the system of transport, from whatever cause.

Captain TERRELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of, in future, publishing in detail the total loss to the country caused by any one strike?

Mr. WEBB: I am afraid the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not quite appreciate the answer I have just given. So far as I know, it is hot within the power of any economist or statistician to give even an approximate answer to an inquiry of that sort.

Captain TERRELL: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the fact that he has had three weeks to prepare his answer?

Mr. PRINGLE: Has any previous President of the Board of Trade ever made a similar estimate?

MAIN ROADF.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 10.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether, in industrial areas where the rates are already excessive, he will sanction the payment to the local authorities concerned of a larger proportion than 50 per coat. of the cost of main roads authorised by his Department?

Mr. GOSLING: In view of the limited funds at my disposal, and the large number of applications for assistance, it is necessary that the normal rate of grant towards the construction of new roads should be restricted to 50 per cent. of the cost. In a few cases, where the highway rate is abnormally high or other exceptional circumstances exist, assistance has been given towards the cost of important road works at a higher rate than 50 per cent.

Mr. THOMSON: Is the Minister aware that, on account of this limited assistance, valuable road work is being held up and unemployment is being increased in consequence?

Mr. GOSLING: If the hon. Member has in mind an application which is being made for additional assistance towards the cost of the new Middlesbrough Road, which is being carried out by the local authorities, I may say that the deputation on the subject is going to be received by the Roads Department this week.

Sir DOUGLAS NEWTON: 11.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry
of Transport whether he is prepared to seek powers of a general character to prescribe an improvement line in the case of all roads likely to become main arteries of traffic?

Mr. GOSLING: I fully realise the importancce of this question, but I am not in a position to state whether it will be possible to introduce legislation.

Lieut.-Colonel ASHLEY: If the Minister of Transport introduce, as 1 hope he will, an omnibus Bill, I would like to know whether the hon. Gentleman can see his way to incorporate in it this very important provision?

Mr. GOSLING: Perhaps I shall be able to tell the right hon. Gentleman a little later on whether I can see my way to do that.

MOTOR CABS (Licsxcss).

Sir D. NEWTON: 12.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport whether he is aware that drivers of motor cabs frequently cannot afford to make the necessary lump sum payment demanded for an annual Hackney licence, and are thereby obliged to pay an additional 20 per cent. in tax; and if he is prepared to take the necessary steps to mitigate or remove this grievance?

Mr. GOSLING: I am aware of the con tention that the conditions attached to the issue of quarterly licences in some cases act to the disadvantage of owner-drivers of motor cabs, and I understand that this is one of the matters which is at present engaging the attention of the Departmental Committee on the Taxation of Motor Vehicles.

Mr. B. SMITH: Is it not a fact that ever since the Act has been in operation owner-drivers have been subjected to this additional tax by virtue of paying quarterly; and will the hon. Gentleman do all he can to see that this burden on the individual owners is removed?

Mr. GOSLING: Perhaps the hon. Member will see me privately about that point.

EX-ARMY RANKER OFFICERS(PENSIONS).

Captain BULLOCK: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has con-
sidered the pension claims of the ex-Army ranker officers and what action the Government proposes to take in the matter?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Walsh): I have carefully considered these claims, and much regret that cannot recommend that he existing Regulations should be amended. The claims now made are not consistent. with the recognised conditions under which these officers originally accepted their commissions—conditions acceptable to them at the time, and duly carried out by the State.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when the recent Election was in prospect the. Prime Minister pledged himself in favour of all these claims of the Ex-ranker Officers' Association? How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile that unconditional pledge with the present answer?

Mr. MACPHERSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that. officers similarly situated in the Navy are drawing a full pension and allowances?

Mr. WALSH: I am aware both of the latter question and of the first one. The questions addressed to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister were framed in such a way as to leave the implication on his mind that people working under exactly similar conditions were receiving different treatment. That is not correct. Because of the implication his answer was framed as it was. I aquatinted my right hon. Friend with both the question and the answer I intended to give to the House, and he is in complete agreement with my answer. The mere fact that the Navy has taken a certain attitude respecting a comparatively few number of men whose conditions of work are. quite distinct does not in any way commit the Army to similar action.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: Are we to understand that any more of these unconditional pledges are to be torn up?

Mr. MACPHERSON: I beg to give notice. that I shall raise this question on the first available pportunity.

Mr. MILLS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consent to receive a deputation on this subject, in view of the apparent recognition by the Conservative Government of these claims?

Mr. WALSH: That question seems to be a perfectly proper one, but inasmuch as the facts have been known for four years, that this particular matter has been raised in two distinct cases which have been brought before the House since 1919, and that it has been before successive Governments, I do not know that a deputation could elicit further information than already exists, and I do not know what useful purpose could be served by receiving a deputation.

Lieut.-Colonel GUINNESS: In view of the fact that this matter has been before the House for four years, was it not possible for the Prime Minister to make himself acquainted with the facts before obtaining votes on this question at the last Election?

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

FISHERIES (PROTECTION).

Mr. MACPHERSON: 8.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether he proposes to put into force the recommendations of Lord Mackenzie's Committee on Trawling?

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. W. Adamson): The recommendations of the Committee with regard to the service for policing the fisheries have been considered and, with the consent of the Treasury, it has been decided to strengthen the service in the following respects: Two small fast auxiliary craft to operate independently of the existing cruisers will be added to the flea, An additional hydroplane will be attached to one of the existing cruisers. One cruiser will be fitted experimentally with wireless apparatus. Provision will be wade for occasional hiring of trawlers or drifters to replace cruisers undergoing overhaul or to meet special emergencies. Parliament will be asked to make the necessary financial provision on the Vote for the Fishery Board for the coming financial year. The other recommendations of the Report, including those which relate to international action and to legislation, are receiving my consideration.

Captain Viscount CURZON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the ships hitherto employed on this duty are inferior in speed, and will he state if the
additional ships referred to are going to have a greater speed than those which have been employed up to now?

Mr. ADAMSON: I shall require notice of that question.

SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION (OLASC01,11).

Mr. HARDIE: 9.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the urgent necessity for a school in the Riddrie district, Glasgow, he will take steps to have one built with all speed?

Mr. ADAMSON: The Department understand that the Glasgow Education Authority are taking steps to provide accommodation for the younger children in Riddrie district as soon as possible.

Mr. HARDIE: I want to know what steps the Minister is going to take, in view of the danger to the children in the neighbouring schools, to avoid this danger in the future?

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

ADVISORY COUNCIL.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: 13.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he proposes to continue the Advisory Committee of business men; if so, whether he will give their names and qualifications; and, if not, whether he proposes to replace it by any other body?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Hartshorn): I am reappointing the Advisory Council, and will send the hon. Member a list of the names and qualifications of its members as soon as I am in a position to do so.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: Will the right hon. Gentleman publish the attendances of the members of the Advisory Committee for last year?

TELEPHONE 'SERVICE (HAMPSTEAD)

Mr. RAFFETY: 14.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the delays in accepting new subscribers at the Hampstead telephone exchange; that the controller has to inform the new stub-scriber that a delay of about three months in the provision of a circuit will probably occur; and that it may be necessary to allot a telephone number recently rented by another subscriber whose name may
still appear in the telephone directory; and if he will say what steps are being taken to overcome these difficulties and to satisfy the demands of business people who wish to have telephone facilities promptly provided?

Mr. HARTSHORN: During the past 12 months the demands for telephone service in the neighbourhoods of Hampstead and Golders Green have been unexpectedly heavy, and consequently the present Exchange equipment became exhausted before the new Exchange could be brought into operation. This Exchange is being provided in a building which has been erected for that purpose at Golders Green and will be ready for service in April next when the difficulty will be removed.

WIRELESS TELEPHONY.

Captain BERKELEY: 15.
asked the Postmaster-General whether his Department is pursuing investigations into the. commercial possibilities of wireless telephony; and, if so, with what result?

Mr. HARTSHORN: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. A technical Committee, consisting of representatives from various European Administrations, has considered the question of European telephony, both by wire and wireless, and was of the opinion that the use of wireless telephony in the organisation of the European International system should not be resorted to except in cases when connection by wire was impracticable. This opinion was no doubt based not only upon the limited number of wave hands at present available to meet other demands for wireless communication, but also on the fact that wireless telephony at present compares unfavourably with line telephony in the matter of reliability, secrecy and cost. A Committee, presided over by Admiral Sir Henry Jackson, was appointed by my predecessor last year to consider the possibility of trans-Atlantic wireless telephony for commercial uses, and that Committee is now engaged in making the necessary investigations.

Captain BERKELEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that investigations are being pursued by Signor Marconi with what is called beam transmission? Will the Department take care that any dis-
coveries in that direction are made available as early as possible for commercial use in this country?

Mr. HARTSHORN: I will inquire into that.

DEPENDANTS' PENSIONS.

Mr. T. THOMSON: 16.
asked the Minister of Pensions if he will suspend the reduction of pensions due to alleged errors in the original assessment of dependence until the Government has had time to reconsider a revision of the terms of the Royal Warrant?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Mr. F. 0. Roberts): I regret that I cannot see my way to accept the hon. Member's suggestion. Much the greater part of the review of pre-War dependence pensions is already completed, and I could not suspend the process at this late date without embarrassing the steps I hope to take to place parents' and dependants' pensions on a better basis. The whole question is engaging my attention and I hope to make an early announcement. Meanwhile, in addition to the arrangements for complaint and appeal intimated by my predecessor, I have given instructions that in any further cases of this class which may arise before the review is completed next month, 14 days' notice will be given to the pensioner within which to make representations to the: Ministry before any change in the pension is made.

Major ENTWISTLE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these errors which are alleged to have been made by the Ministry are only discovered sometimes five years after the original assessment, and then a small pension of, say, 10s. a week is reduced by a miserable figure of about 2s. a week, causing great resentment? Will he put an end to this niggardly and unnecessary practice?

Mr. ROBERTS: 1 am quite aware of the facts stated by my lion. and gallant Friend. In order to do what he wishes, I am making special inquiry, and propose to take fresh and definite action.

Captain BERKELEY: Arising out of the previous answer with reference to the period of 14 days within which a pensioner can appeal to the Ministry,
ay I ask if any steps will be taken to give the pensioner expert assistance in presenting his case, as a great deal depends upon that?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a question which should be put on the Paper.

DIPLOMATIC SERVICE.

Dr. CHAPPLE: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether His Majesty's commercial diplomatic officers in foreign countries have been given any instructions to hold themselves at the service of the Dominions, the Colonies, and India in any need that might arise within their competence to deal with.?

Mr. LUNN (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I have been asked to reply. The answer is: Yes, Sir. A copy of the Summary of Conclusions of the Imperial Economic Conference, 1923, has been sent to commercial diplomatic officers, and special instructions have been issued calling their attention to Resolution 4 (A) (1), under which their services are placed at the disposal of the Governments of the Dominions and India and of the Colonies and Protectorates in the same way and to the same extent as the services of His Majesty's Trade Commissioners within the Empire are already at their disposal.

RUSSIA (RECOGNITION BY GREAT BRITAIN).

Mr. HUDSON: 18.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps have been taken for the purpose of effecting the de jure recognition of the Russian Government?

Lieut-Commander KENWORTHY: 32.
asked the Prime Minister what steps he is taking, or proposes to take, to settle outstanding questions with the Government of Russia?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald): I shall answer these questions together. His Majesty's Government., as my hon. Friend is doubtless aware, granted de jure recognition to the Soviet Government on the 1st of February. I would refer my hon. Friend to the terms of the Note addressed to the Soviet Government and of the reply now
received, which were published in the Press on the 2nd and 9th of February respectively.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, while congratulating him upon this extremely sensible step, whether he has found it possible to convey to the Russian Government the condolences of His Majesty's Government on the death of Lenin?

Mr. SPEAKER: That has no connection with the question on the Paper.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Has any appointment been made of an Ambassador to Moscow, and, if so, can we have the name?

The PRIME MINISTER: If the hon. Gentleman will read the answer in which I referred him to the despatch I have sent, he will sec that that question does not yet arise.

GERMAN REPARATION.

Mr. HUDSON: 19.
asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the provisions for the extraction from Germany of 26 per cent. of the value of goods exported from Germany to tins country will now be abrogated, in view of the refusal of the German Government to honour, since 17th November, 1923, further reparation receipts and the consequent imposition on British traders both of the 26 per cent. charge and other charges?

Mr. HILLARY: 44.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what action the Government has taken, or intends to take, in view of the refusal of the German Government to refund to German exporters the amount of the charge levied under the German Reparation (Recovery) Act?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Snowden): I am aware of the loss and inconvenience caused to British traders by the failure of the German Government to fulfil its obligations. This has formed the subject of strong protests both by the late and the present Governments. The German Government having failed to make any satisfactory proposals, renewed representations were made to them last week of which I expect to hear the result very shortly.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: May I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that goods from Germany are being offered in England through the Irish Free State? If that position of affairs is allowed to proceed, will it not reduce the whole of this arrangement to a screaming farce?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a question which should be put on the Paper.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: If the further representations which the right hon. Gentleman is making have no effect, what action does he propose to take?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a hypothetical question.

Mr. PRINGLE: Will not the Government consider repealing the Act altogether?

Mr. SNOWDEN: If the negotiations which are now going on between this Government and Germany fail, then the whole thing will have to be considered.

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Is not that rather inviting the German Government to ignore the representations of this Government?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I should be very sorry indeed if any one except the right hon. Gentleman placed such an interpretation on my answer.

Sir F. WISE: 42.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total amount Germany has paid to the Reparation Commission to date?

Mr. SNOWDEN: Up to 31st October, 1923, the latest date for which figures are available, Germany has been credited by the Reparation Commission in respect of costs of occupation and reparation with the total amount of 8,386 million gold marks, say £419,000,000, of which 1,831 million gold marks, say £92,000,000, was in respect of cash payments and the balance in respect of deliveries in kind and ceded State properties. In addition, paper marks have been supplied direct to the Armies of Occupation in the Rhineland to the value of, say, £32,000,000.

Sir K. WOOD: In that figure, has there, been any sum included for the cost of the Army of Occupation?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I said so.

Captain BERKELEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman subdivide the amount into what has been swallowed up by the Army of Occupation and what has been actually credited to Reparations Account?

Mr. SNOWDEN: The hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot expect me to do that on the spur of the moment, 1 am sure, but if he would like the information I will ask if it is available.

Mr. PRINGLE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the sum just stated includes the amount collected under the German Reparation (Recovery) Act in this country?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I must have notice of that question. The answer states that Germany has been credited by the Reparation Commission with a certain amount.

UNEMPLOYMENT.

BENEFIT (GAP PERIOD).

Mr. T. THOMSON: 22.
asked the Minister of Health if he will receive a deputation representing those necessitous local authorities whose claims have already been brought to the notice of his Department, and whose condition is now worse owing to the operation of the gap period in the payment of unemployment benefit?

Mr. WHEATLEY: Yes, Sir.

BUILDING TRADES.

Mr. CLIMIE: 30.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of men unemployed in each month of the last three months of 1923, and the number whose unemployment books were out during that period in the following trades: carpenters, bricklayers, masons, slaters and painters?

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Thomas Shaw): As the reply is necessarily lengthy, and contains a considerable number of figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the statement:—

ESTIMATED numbers of persons insured against unemployment in certain occupations in the Building Industry in Great Britain at October, 1923, and numbers of unemployment books lodged at Employment Exchanges at the end of October, November and December. 1923.


Occupations.
Estimated Numbers of persons in these occupations, in the Building Industry, insured against unemployment
 Numbers of these Books were persons whose Unemployment Books were lodged at Exchanges at




22nd October,
26th November,
21st December,




1923.
1923.
1923.


(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)


Carpenters
122,620
4,287
4,554
4,915


Bricklayers
56,260
771
956
1,150


Masons
21,880
531
659
757


Slaters
5,090
202
218
271


Painters
105,780
17,699
24,651
28,116

It should be specially noted that these figures relate only to persons of these occupations in the building trade. The figures do not include the persons in these occupations (whose numbers in total are considerable) outside the building trade (e.g., in shipyards, or as maintenance men in establishments outside the building trade); figures with regard to these persons, corresponding to those given above, are not available

The figures in the column (2) are based on an estimate obtained by taking the total number of insured persons engaged in the building industry in 1923, and applying to that total the occupational ratios derived from the exchange of unemployment books which took place in the third quarter of 1922.

UNSKILLED LABOUR (WAGES).

Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: 31.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can give an undertaking to the House that the proviso shall be abolished in unemployment relief schemes under direct labour whereby only 75 per cent. of the trade union or district rate of wages may be paid to so-called unskilled labour on work which is normally regarded as unskilled?

Mr. SHAW: This point is under consideration, and a decision has not yet been reached.

CEMENT CONTRACT (MIDDLESBROUGH).

Mr. T. THOMSON: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the unemployment Grants Committee have refused to allow the Middles-brough corporation to buy 400 tons of
French cement required for street work during February, although the price is Ms. per ton less than the British Cement Combine price. Has this been done by his authority, and, if so, will he reconsider his decision so as to avoid placing an unnecessary burden of £220 on the backs of the already overburdened ratepayers.

Mr. WHEATLEY: As the hon. Member;s aware, it has been a condition of the giving of unemployment grants that, unless there are exceptional reasons to the contrary, British materials shall be used. I understand that, in view of the reduction in the price of British cement, the Unemployment Grants Committee did not feel on this occasion that they could properly give a grant to the Corporation unless they used British cement.

Mr. THOMSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this is the way that his Government are going to smash the rings and trusts by protecting home industries.

Mr. WHEATLEY: The Ministry have no power to give directions to the Unemployment Grants Committee. They hope to obtain from Parliament powers to deal with trusts.

HOUSING (BUILDING PROGRESS).

Mr. MARDY JONES: 23.
asked the. Minister of Health what is the total number of houses sanctioned for building under the Housing Act, 1923, up to the 31st December, 1923; what is the total number of houses of each type of house so sanctioned; how many of each type are being built by local housing authori-
ties and by private builders; and will he show separately the equivalent data for each of the local housing authorities in the counties of Glamorgan, Monmouth-shire and Carmarthenshire?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The total number of houses authorised under the Housing, etc., Act, 1923, up to the 31st December last, was 85,036, of which 31,434 are to be erected by local authorities and 53,602 by private builders. Figures are not available showing the numbers of each type so authorised, but contracts had been let by local authorities at the date in question for 11,993 non-parlour houses and 3,966 parlour houses. Of the houses to be, erected by private enter- prise certificates had been issued by local authorities or contracts entered into by societies, companies and trustees proceeding under Section 3 of the Act, in respect of 9,567 non-parlour and 15,262 parlour houses, and in 3,395 cases the type is not known. I will send the hon. Member a statement giving the information referred to in the last part of his question.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Is it not a fact that during the year ending on the 31st December, 1923, the largest number of houses was erected of any year since 1913?

Mr. WHEATLEY: If the hon. Member refers to houses erected under the Act of 1923, I am quite sure he is mistaken.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: Arising out of the important statement which the right hon. Gentleman has made as to the number of houses built by private enterprise, may the House take it that the right hon. Gentleman will fully encourage the building of more houses by private enterprise in this country?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I think the hon. Member may rely on my doing that, but let me assure him that I would enter into it with more enthusiasm if the houses were being erected for the people who really need accommodation.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir JOSEPH NALL: In view of the fact that many of these authorised houses have not yet been started, is the right hon. Gentleman taking any steps to deal with those people who are deliberately retarding the building of houses?

Mr. SPEAKER: This is not the time for debate. We cannot debate the matter now.

Mr. CLIMIE: 25.
asked the Minister of Health the number of houses of which plans have been approved by local authorities under the 1923 Housing Act, the numbers of those approved plans of houses which are being built by local authorities, and the number by private enterprise; and if he will give the number approved under sections of the Act to enable the working population to become owners of their own houses?

Mr. WHEATLEY: Up to the 1st instant approval has been given by the Minister of Health to schemes proposed by local authorities for 95,715 houses, of which 33,994 are to be erected by local authorities and 61,721 by private enterprise. In respect of the houses to be erected by the local authorities themselves, contracts have been entered into covering 18,687 houses. As regards the houses to be erected by private enterprise, certificates have been issued, on the approval of plans, for 36,543 houses. Since the passing of the Act of 1923, loans amounting to £2,153,595 have been sanctioned to local authorities for the purpose of making advances to prospective owner-occupiers or to persons undertaking the erection of houses. Figures as to the numbers of houses to be built for owner-occupiers are not available, but it, may be taken that the majority of the houses proposed to be provided by private enterprise are to be built for sale.

Mr. BECKER: Has the right hon. Gentleman sufficient information with regard to the numbers of bricklayers that will be available to build these houses. and does he think that there are sufficient?

Mr. SPEAKER: That. question should be put on the Paper.

SMALL-PON.

Mr. MARDY-JONES: 24.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that private medical practitioners experience difficulty in obtaining supplies of glycerinated calf lymph of the same guaranteed purity as that supplied to public vaccinators by the Ministry of Health; and, as many persons desirous
of having vaccination or revaccination performed by their own medical advisers should have similar guarantees with regard to the purity of the lymph used to those extended to persons vaccinated by public vaccinators, will he take steps to secure the necessary powers to enable private medical practitioners to secure supplies of such lymph at a reasonable charge from Government sources?

Mr. WHEATLEY: As regards the first part of the question, I am advised that there, is nit difficulty in obtaining from reputable firms supplies of glycerinated calf lymph of reliable quality. The action suggested in the second part would involve a large and costly extension of the present Government supply which I am not prepared to recommend.

Dr. CHAPPLE:: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is actually a shortage of lymph, and medical practitioners requiring it arc not able to get it?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I am advised that there is no such shortage.

Sir K. WOOD: 27.
asked the Minister of Health what steps he is taking to deal with the serious outbreak of small-pox in various parts of the country?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The responsibility for dealing with an outbreak of small-pox rests upon the local authorities and their officers. I may, however, say that at present there are only seven districts in which there is any considerable number of cases, and the medical officers of my Department are rendering all possible assistance and advice to the authorities of the affected areas.

Sir K. WOOD: In respect of this outbreak and any other future outbreaks, will the right hon. Gentleman do his best to ensure the full enforcement of the Vaccination Acts? [HoN. MEMBERS: "No!"]

SMOKE ABATEMENT.

Mr. HARDIE.: 26.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the pollution of the atmosphere by coal smoke, he will take immediate steps for having the question considered with a view to a satisfactory solution?

Mr. WHEATLEY: The question of introducing legislation on this subject is receiving consideration.

CHILD EMIGRATION.

Mrs. WINTRINGHAM: 28.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that permission has been refused to Mr. and Mrs. Townend, 17, Hartsholme Drive,. Swanpool, Lincoln, to take with them to Bermuda the two boys whom they have adopted as their own, in spite of representations from the board of guardians and of the children's desire to accompany them; and whether, if Poor Law Orders are in existence which prevent, permission being given, he will have these Orders reconsidered and revised?

Mr. WHEATLEY: Permission for the emigration of these two boys was not refused by my Department, but the attention of the guardians was drawn to the provisions of Section 3 of the Poor' Law Act, 1899, which requires that, on the adoption of a boarded-out child, the guardians will cause the child to be visited at least twice in each year for the first three years. This being a statutory requirement, I have, of course, no power to alter it by Order, but it would be open to the guardians, if they thought fit, to make arrangements with a view to meeting this requirement.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS (DRAFT TREATY OF MUTUAL ASSISTANCE).

Mr. HUDSON: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Foreign Office has received an invitation from the League of Nations to state what would be the attitude of this country towards the draft Treaty of mutual assistance communicated to the council and members of the League on 27th September, 1923; whether any reply has been despatched to the League; and, if so, what was the nature of the reply?

The PRIME MINISTER: His Majesty's Government have received a request for a statement of their views on the draft Treaty, but the terms of the reply have not yet been settled.

Mr. FISHER: Will the right hon. Gentleman, before sending a reply to the League of Nations on this important
point, take the Governments of the Dominions into consultation

The PRIME MINISTER: I think that that would be done in the ordinary course, but I am perfectly willing to say that it will be done in this respect.

Mr. HARVEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to say that, before a decisive reply is given committing the whole country on this question, this House will have an opportunty of expressing its opinion?

RUHR OCCUPATION.

Captain BERKELEY: 21.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the present position regarding the Ruhr Valley occupation; what negotiations he has had with the Allies regarding the separatist movement in Germany; and whether the Expert Committee on Reparations has made any report?

The PRIME MINISTER: As regards the first part of the question, direct negotiations between the French and Belgian Governments on the one side and the German Government on the other side, regarding the regime in the Ruhr, are stil1 in progress. As regards the separatist movement in occupied territory, I trust that negotiations between His Majesty's Government and the French and Belgian Governments which have been in progress ever since my Government took office, will shortly be satisfactorily concluded. For the moment, I would prefer, if the House would allow me, to postpone any detailed statement, in order not to hamper the negotiations. The answer to the last part of the question is in the negative.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's reply that these negotiations have been going on ever since the formation of his Government, does he mean by that to imply that the negotiations now going on are continuous with those which were in operation?

The PRIME MINISTER: The right hon. Gentleman knows how these questions are put into one's hand. I am very sorry if anything should have slipped from me which would have implied that I started the negotiations. I took them over at a certain point, but I have continued them.

Mr. H. H. SPENCER: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the policy of His Majesty's Government is that Germany shall pay reparations up to her capacity?

The PRIME MINISTER: That is a larger question.

Captain BERKELEY: Without asking the right hon. Gentleman to violate his wish not to give details, may 1 ask if he can say whether what was referred to as the blockade of the British zone is now abated?

The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I -can say that is very considerably abated. I hope, however, that the House will allow me to carry the negotiations to a further stage before making any definite statement.

Sir F. WISE: 36.
asked the Prime Minister what was the production of coal, iron, and steel from the Ruhr for 1923 and 1924, respectively.?

Mr. WEBB: I have been asked to reply. Information as to the production' of iron and steel in the Ruhr during 1922 and 1923 is not available. The output of coal in the Ruhr during 1922 was 94,583,000 metric tons. For 1923 there is no official information, but a rough estimate from an unofficial source places the output at about 40,000,000 tons.

Mr. REMER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a large quantity of steel lying in the Ruhr, and what does he propose to do when it comes to this country?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Is the estimate of output of coal from the Ruhr for 1923 that given by the French Government recently in Paris propaganda, or is it an estimate formed in this country?

Mr. WEBB: It is an estimate compiled in this country from various sources of unofficial and necessarily inexact information on the spot, but it is formed in this country.

RECONSTRUCTION (WORLD CONFERENCE).

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: 33.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to a memorial now being
widely circulated appealing for a world conference on reconstruction whether this represents the policy of the Government; and, if so, what action it proposes to take in the matter?

The PRIME MINISTER: This is a question of far too general import. His Majesty's Government is now dealing with the details of such a settlement, and is glad to be able to state that the prospects are promising. I welcome every movement to enlist support for this object.

MINISTERS' SALARIES.

Sir K. WOOD: 34 and 35.
asked the Prime Minister (1) whether he proposes to make any reduction or alteration in the respective amounts payable in respect of Ministerial salaries;
(2) whether he proposes to make any alterations in relation to the payment of salaries and fees of the Law Officers of his Ministry?

The PRIME MINISTER: The general arrangements approved by the House of Commons in the case of previous Administrations will be submitted in the respective Estimates for the approval of the House. The Estimate for the Foreign Office will be decreased by an amount equivalent to £5,000 a year so long as the Prime Minister continues to act as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Estimate for the salary of the Lord Privy Seal will be increased from £2,000 to £5,000 a year on the analogy of previous holders of that office when Leader of the House. As regards the Lord Chancellor, my Noble Friend in accepting office relinquished the allowance of 15,000 per annum which he drew as a former holder of the office in respect of the judicial functions which he continued to perform in the House of Lords, and expressed the wish that his salary should be fixed at 16,000 per annum instead of the sum of £10,000 drawn by his predecessors. The net result of this arrangement is a saving of £9,000 a year to public funds so long as my Noble Friend continues to hold this office.

Sir K. WOOD: Has the Prime Minister considered the suggestion which has been made by the hon. Member for Stirling
(Mr. Johnston) which he said would strike the imagination of the country, namely, that the Labour Government should accept their Parliamentary salaries only?

Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALL: Is it not the usual practice in this House that if the Prime Minister holds two offices Le only draws one salary, as is suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, and whether under the circumstances, the present Government is not effecting any saving by adopting that method?

The PRIME MINISTER: It does not matter what the practice is provided the practice does save £9,000, as is the case here.

Mr. HOGGE: Has the right how. Gentleman taken into consideration the report which was furnished to this House, 1 think by your predecessor, Sir, Lord Ullswater, on the whole question of the adjustment of Cabinet salaries, both for Ministers and Under-Secretaries, bringing about it more equal condition among the Members of any Government of whatever colour?

The PRIME MINISTER: We have taken that report into consideration. I feel very strongly that the whole question ought to be reviewed, as at present it is most inequitable, but so far as I am concerned I will not agree to it being reviewed while we ourselves are in office unless it comes spontaneously from the whole House of Commons.

Commander BELLAIRS: With regard to the Law Officers of the Crown, is it riot the case that the fees of the Law Officers do not come before this House, and could not the total be limited to something like £10,000 instead of reaching over 120,000?

Mr. PRINGLE:: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider restoring the practice in relation to the Law Officers which was put into operation during the War and which was only abandoned in 1919?

Colonel Sir C. YATE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that, in view of the enormous responsibilities imposed on Ministers, their present pay is too small?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for debate.

CABINET MINISTERS (TRADE UNIONS).

Captain TERRELL: 37.
asked the Prime Minister whether any Members of the Cabinet are connected in any way with trades union organisation or work; and whether he proposes to apply to them the same rule affecting Cabinet Ministers in respect to directorship of public companies?

The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir. Cabinet Ministers have already applied to themselves in respect of trades union organisation or work the same rule as is applied in respect to directorship of public companies.

Captain TERRELL: Is there any truth in the rumour that stmt. Members of the Cabinet are being, subsidised by the unions with which they have been hitherto associated?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a question which I should see before it is allowed to be put.

Mr. D. G. SOMERVILLE: Does that answer also apply to any international organization?

AGRICULTURE.

Captain TERRELL: 38.
asked the Prime Minister if ho can state the policy of his Government with respect to agriculture; and whether he proposes to introduce any remedial legislation during the present Session?

The PRIME MINISTER:: I would ask the hon. and gallant Member to await the statement which I intend to make this afternoon.

EGYPT (EXCAVATION WORK).

Dr. CHAPPLE: 39.
asked the Prim: Minister what privileges and concessions are extended by the British Government to Mr. Howard Carter in his work of exploration in Egypt; and whether, in return for any State advantages or protection extended, any condition is attached requiring that the facts of the discoveries and the photographs and lantern slides made shall not be withheld from the public, but shall be made available for the instruction and interest of all?

The PRIME MINISTER: No privileges or concessions are extended by His Majesty's Government to Mr. Howard Carter in his excavation work in Egypt, which is that of a private individual and subject to the provisions of the Egyptian Law of Antiquities. The last part of the question does not, therefore, arise.

OLD AGE PENSIONS.

Mr. RATHBONE: 41.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will at an early date introduce a Bill to amend the Old Age Pensions Act by abolishing the thrift disqualification?

Mr. RAFFAN: 45.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it is proposed to introduce early legislation for the purpose of amending the Old Age Pensions Act so as to carry out the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Old Age Pensions, 1919, and especially to secure the abolition of the present means limit, which imposes an unfair discrimination against the thrifty and deserving?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I would ask the hon. Members to await the statement which the Prime Minister is making this afternoon.

WAR DEBTS (FRANCE).

Sir F. WISE: 43.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the total amount of the repayment of war debts of France to the United States of America. Japan, Switzerland and Spain, and also the individual amounts repaid to each country?

Mr. SNOWDEN: I am circulating in the OFFICIAL EEPOICT such information as is available.

Following is the 111.forno, t ion supplied:—

The French Minister of Finance informed the Chamber of Deputies on the 19th December last, as reported in the "Journal Officiel," that France had repaid in 1920, 5,136 million francs; in 1921, 5,066 millions; in 1922, 2,088 millions: in 1923, 1,100 millions, a total of more than 13 milliard francs of which 10 milliards had been paid to foreign countries and 3 to the Bank of France. On the 26th December, he gave some details of the payment of 1,100 million francs in 1923, namely, to Spain 204 million pesetas, 13
million dollars to the United States of America, and 50 million ye these figures refer mainly to market debts.

RENT RESTRICTIONS ACT (EVICTIONS).

Mr. MILLS: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Health if his attention has been called to the wholesale, evictions now taking place all over the country of respectable tenants, some with large families; whether he is aware that in 40 cases in one Court where eviction orders were granted, the tenants had never been in arrears and had an average tenancy of eleven years each, and what steps are being taken or contemplated to end this scandal?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have not had my attention drawn officially to the particular cases to which reference is made, but I am aware that a number of such eases are occurring in different parts of the country. The Government are considering the whole question of Rent Restriction. In the meantime, as my hon. Friend will appreciate, I have no authority to interfere with the decision of the Courts.

Mr. B. SMITH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the costs attached to the eviction are of such a character as to force the tenants to sell their homes in order to pay them?

Mr. WHEATLEY: I have the utmost sympathy with the spirit which prompts these questions, and I shall do all in my power to bring relief to these suffering people.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir PAGE CROFT: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider in view of these hardships that, where owners are given power at this late stage to occupy their own cottages and houses, first consideration will be given to those tenants who are thus displaced in the provision of the new houses by municipal authorities?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member must put that question on the Paper.

INDIA.

MR. GANDHI (RELEASE).

Mr. WARDLAW MILNE: (by Private Notice) asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the release of Mr. Gandhi has been permitted unconditionally, or whether he has given any undertaking to refrain in the future from actions of the character of those which resulted in his conviction and whether his release was carried out at the instance of the Government of Bombay or was suggested to the Government of India by the Secretary of State?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. R. Richards): No conditions were attached to the release of Mr. Gandhi, who had recently undergone an operation for appendicitis. The Secretary of State left full discretion to the Government of India in the matter, and their decision was taken after consultation with the Government of Bombay.

NON-CO-OPERAT1ON PARTY.

Mr. MILNE: (by Private Notice) asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the assassin who murdered Mr. Day in Calcutta on the 19th January, 1924, was a member of the Non-co-operation party; is this party still preaching racial hatred in Bengal towns and villages and through the newspapers, and, if so, what action is being taken by the Government of India. to counteract or prevent these activities?

Mr. WALLHEAD: Can the hon. Member also say whether the late lamented Crippen was a member of the Tory party?

Mr. RICHARDS: The assassin belonged to a secret revolutionary society, but there is no reason to suppose that the Non-co-operation party, in spite of its racial views, has inspired crimes of violence as a system of policy. With regard to the second and third parts of the question, whenever the Government have reason to suppose that owing to political agitation the peace is likely to be broken, action has been taken under the provisions of law appropriate to the circumstances.

DOCK LABOUR DISPUTE.

Mr. REMER: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether his attention
has been called to the imminence of the dock strike due to start on the 16th February; whether he is aware that negotiations in this matter wee being seriously prejudiced by the answer given by the Minister of Health to the deputation from the Poplar Board of Guardians; and whether he will give an assurance that promises of full maintenance to people engaged in industrial disputes will not be sanctioned?

The PRIME MINISTER: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. There is a conference at present sitting in the Ministry of Labour on the subject. There is no truth in the suggestion contained in the second part of the question that negotiations were seriously prejudiced by the answer given by the Minister of Health to the deputation from the Poplar Board of Guardians. With regard to the last part of the question, the Government will act in accordance with the law as laid down by Statute and by the findings of the Courts.

LABOUR AND SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: (by Private Notier) asked the Prime Minister whether he can assure the House that neither he nor any member of the Government is any longer in any way connected with the Labour and Socialist International, commonly known as the Sozialistisehe Arbeiter Internationale, the decisions of which on all international questions are by its constitution binding on the representatives of affiliated bodies?

The PRIME MINISTER: In accordance with the constitution of the International, which is not commonly known, however, as the Sozialistisehe Arbeiter Internationale, except for purposes of prejudice, no member of a Government can serve as a member of its committees; the Labour party is affiliated to this body and will carry out its obligations as stated in the programmes of the party issued to the British electors at the time of elections. The obligations of a society affiliated to the International are similar to those undertaken by States on becoming members of the League of Nations. The affiliation is purely voluntary and can be terminated at any time should necessity arise.

Sir W. DAVISON: Is the House to understand that, while the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have ceased to be members of the Executive of this international body, they are still associated with it and adhere to the clause in its constitution which provides that the decisions of the international body shall override the decisions of any of the affiliated nations whose representatives are on that body?

The PRIME MINISTER: I think that the hon. Member rather misunderstands the nature of the clause to which he refers. The clause simply says that the decision of the International shall guide the national bodies affiliated to it. I f these bodies disagree with the decision of the International they are always in the position of being able to withdraw at any moment.

Sir W. DAVISON: Ts the right hon. Gentleman aware that the clause to which he refers ends with the saying that this is a self-imposed limitation to the autonomy of the affiliated organisations, and that this implies that—

Mr. SPEAKER: This matter cannot be debated by question and answer.

QUESTIONS (PRIME MINISTER'S ATTENDANCE).

Mr. MOREL: (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister on what days he himself personally will be available to reply to questions?

The PRIME MINISTER: The House will, I am sure, he prepared to extend to me a little indulgence while I feel it my duty to hold two offices. I shall be unable for the time being to be present in my place to answer questions or all days of the week. My present intention is to take questions addressed to me as Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on Monday and questions addressed to me as Prime Minister on Wednesday. On other days the Lord Privy Seal, as Deputy Leader of the House, will reply to questions addressed to the Prime Minister and the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs will deal with questions addressed to the Foreign Secretary. I hope that this arrangement will meet with the general approval of the House.

Mr. BALDWIN: May 1 suggest that it would be for the convenience of the House that the questions should be put down on the Order Paper in the same place as that in which they would appear if the right hon. Gentleman were here to answer them, and that it would be for the convenience of the House if the questions were kept in their regular place on the Order Paper, whether the right hon. Gentleman were present or not?

The PRIME MINISTER: I think that that will be so. I am certain that it will be so should my right hon. Friend wish it and it is for the convenience of the House.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: May I suggest that. it would be for the convenience of the House and of the right hon. Gentleman himself if he could arrange with the authorities of the House that questions addressed to him as Foreign Secretary should either immediately precede or immediately follow those which are addressed to him as Prime Minister.

The PRIME MINISTER: I am much obliged to my right hon. Friend for his suggestion. That arrangement has already been made.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (MEMBERS' TICKETS FOR SEATS).

Mr. SEXTON: I wish to raise a point of Order in connection with the distribution of tickets for seats arising out of what, took place this morning. I myself and others, who may be called first nighters, came here at an early hour this morning and formed in a queue in order to secure tickets for seats. No sooner were we in the queue, however, than there was an ungodly rush from behind which made the distribution of tickets in a proper manner impossible, and I was thrown on the floor and made into a carpet and walked on. I have no objection whatever to a return of the Prodigal Son. My only objection is to being considered by anybody as a fit subject for the fatted calf. Therefore I wish to ask you, if it is not possible to make some regulations, so as avoid a repetition of such incidents in future. I know that these incidents do not occur very often, but in the present conditions of politics nobody knows how often they will happen. Therefore I should he much
obliged, if you can lay down some regulations for what I may call first nighters who assemble here early in the morning.

Mr. MILLS: May I mention that two lady Members who were here before eight o'clock were swept clean out of the way and their headgear strewn all over the place. Would you, Mr. Speaker, give orders that as from to-morrow all Members who assemble in order to get tickets shall take their place in a queue, as if they were waiting for a 'bus?

Mr. SPEAKER: This is the first news which I have heard of the mishap that occurred this morning. Apparently if there were any lack of order, it was merely a lack of order on the part of some particular hon. Member which, I am sure, will not be repeated, but I will make inquiries with regard to the officials, for whom I am responsible, so as to ensure that in future matters shall be conducted in an orderly manner.

Mr. MILLS: May I assure you that the officials were in no way to blame. The officials opening the door were swept aside immediately. The official in charge of the giving out of the tickets worked to the best of his ability, and we are casting no reflection whatever on any of these gentlemen.

Sir GRATTAN DOYLE: As one of those who were present this morning, may I say that the whole trouble arose owing to the overwhelming number of hon. Gentlemen on that [Ministerial] side of the House who put in an appearance, and the rather unruly manner—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order" and "Withdraw! "]

Mr. SPEAKER: I hope hon. Members will not make reflections on one another. It will now be for me to institute inquiries.

Mr. B. SMITH: Will you, Sir, when making those inquiries, consider the advisability of the doors being opened somewhat later, so that Members desiring to secure seats will not, be expected to sit up all night.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: There is another similar point which to me is much more important in view of the state of the parties. Would it not be infinitely better if the seats on the cross benches below the Bar were considered as part of the House. They are likely to be
occupied much more in the future than they have been hitherto. I consider, and I believe I express the opinion of a great number of Members, that there should be no seats on the Floor of the House, other than those occupied by the officials behind the Chair, that are not available to Members, and in which they can transact their business, and from which, if necessary, they can speak?

Mr. SPEAKER: I will consider that question with the other matter.

Mr. HARDIE: May I draw your attention to one thing which occurred this morning. When the rush took place, one hon. Member put his hat on a seat, and then went to get a ticket. Does the placing of a hat on a seat secure that seat?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a very old custom of the House, but I will consider the point with the others.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: think it would be convenient if we could be told what is to be the course of business to-day. It has been stated that there is to be a Motion for the Adjournment of the Debate and it would be convenient if we were informed what is proposed.

The PRIME MINISTER: In that matter I am quite in the hands of the House. I anticipate that to-day, to-morrow, and the next day will be taken up with this Debate, but it has been communicated to me through the usual channels that there might be a desire, after I have finished what I have to say this afternoon, for an Adjournment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] It has been communicated to me through the usual channels. I am not concerned one way or the other. If it be for the convenience of the House, I am perfectly ready to agree, but, if hon. Members wish to carry on the Debate, I do not see why we should not do so.

Mr. BALDWIN: We have had no information as to the nature of the right hon. Gentleman's speech or the length of it, and I think we must await fuller know-
ledge. If the speech were one of considerable length covering a large variety of subjects, it might be for the general convenience of the House to adjourn until to-morrow.

The PRIME MINISTER: I agree.

TURNER: I wish to protest against any further adjournment. Parliament has been closed down except for a few days since August, and I think we should get on with the business.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.

Sir Thomas Vansittart Bowater, baronet, for the City of London.

BOTICES OF MOTION:

PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRIES.

On Wednesday, 13th February, to call attention to the necessity for tegulating imports and the protection of home industries, and to move a Resolution.— [Mr. Milne.]

MOTHERS' PENSIONS.

On Wednesday, 20th February, to call attention to Mothers' Pensions, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Duke.]

On Tuesday, 26th February, to call attention to Mothers' Pensions, and to move a Resolution.—[Jir. F. Gray.]

COMMUNIST ORGANISATION.

On Wednesday, 20th February, to call attention to the Communist organisation in Great Britain, and to move a Resolution.—[Jiajor Kindersley.]

EX-ARMY RANKER OFFICERS.

On Tuesday, 26th February, to call attention to the grievances of ex-Army ranker officers, and to move a Resolution.— [Colonel Perkins.]

GOVERNMENT PLEDGES.

On Tuesday, 26th February, to call attention to certain broken pledges of the Government, and to move a Resolution.— [Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. Nail.]

IMPERIAL PREFERENCE.

On Tuesday, 26th February, to call attention to the dangers likely to arise from Imperial Preference, and to move a Resolution.—[Mr. Vivian.]

RENT RESTRICTIONS ACT.

On Tuesday, 26th February, to all attention to the Rent Restrictions Act, and to move a Resolution.—[MR. Sherwood.]

CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald): I beg to move, "That Mr. Robert Young be the Chairman of Ways and Means."
The House will remember that a Resolution moved by the late Government that two hon. Members of this House should be the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Deputy-Chairman respectively was withdrawn for the convenience of the House. Since then I have been trying to see whether it was possible to withdraw those two offices a little further than they have been hitherto from mere party nomination. I have not been quite successful. I think it is necessary that the Chairman of Ways and Means should belong to the party responsible for the Government, because he has a great deal to do with the arrangement of business, and it is necessary that there should be co-operation between him and the Government in respect to the arrangement of business.
But there is another very good principle which I hope the House will support mein trying to carry out, and that is that every party in the House should have at least one Member who has experience of the Chair. I think that is a very sound business rule to lay down. Therefore, I have instructed the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Spoor) to approach the various parties to see if we cannot come to an accommodation on those lines. To-day, I think it would be convenient that we should give you a Chairman of Ways and Means, because you, Sir, require to vacate the Chair every now and again, but until some sort of agreement has been come to regarding the Deputy-Chairman I do not propose to move anyone for that office. I shall con-
tinue, if the House be agreeable, my attempts to find a Deputy-Chairman who will meet the requirements of the suggested rule which I have laid down. In the meantime, I propose moving a Chairman of Ways and Means, and the name I suggest is that of one who has already had some experience as a member of the Chairman's Panel. I refer to the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Robert Young).
Question put, and agreed to.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

Consolidation Bills,—That they communicate that they have come to the following Resolution, viz.: "That it is desirable that all Consolidation Bills of the present Session be. referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament."

GOVERNMENT POLICY.

PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT.

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald): I beg to move,

"That this House do now adjourn."

No Prime Minister has ever met the House of Commons in circumstances similar to those in which I meet it. For the time being no party in this House has a majority. The party opposite is the largest, of the three, but on account of the circumstances of the Election, it is impossible for this House to ask them to remain in power. As the second party, the Labour party has accepted the responsibility of office. I think that that will necessitate some alteration in our House of Commons habits. I think that we will have less to say- about party and less to think about party than we have had hitherto, and that we shall lay more and more emphasis upon the responsibility of individual Members of this House of voting as responsible Members of the House and not merely as party politicians. That is all to the good, as far as this House is concerned. It puts me in this position, however: I have a lively recollection of all sorts of ingenuities practised by Oppositions in order to spring a snap division upon a Government, so that it might turn it out upon a defeat. I have known bathrooms downstairs utilised, not for their legitimate purpose, but for the illegitimate purpose of packing as many Members surreptitiously inside their doors as their physical limitations would allow. I have known an adjoining building, where there happens to be a convenient Division bell, used for similar purposes. I have seen the House, practically empty when the bells began to ring, suddenly transformed into a very riotous sort of market-place by the inrush of Members, doing their best for their nation, for the House of Commons and for their party, to find a Government napping, and to turn it out upon a stupid issue.
I am going out on no such issue. I am sure that no one would enjoy the engineering of those snap divisions more than my hon. Friend opposite (Commander Eyres-Monsell). He could do it. On this occasion he will not bag his prey. The Labour Government will go out if it be defeated upon substantial issues, issues of principle, issues that
really matter. It will go out if the responsible leaders of either party or any party move a direct vote of no confidence, and carry that vote, But I propose to introduce my business, knowing that I am in a minority, accepting the responsibilities of a minority, and claiming the privileges that attach to those responsibilities. If the House en matters non-essential, matters of mere opinion, matters that do not strike at the root of the proposals that we make, and do not destroy fundamentally the general intentions of the Government in introducing legislation—if the House wish to vary our proposition, the House must take the responsibility for that variation—then a division on such amendments and questions as those will not be regarded as a vote of no confidence.
In some respects my difficulties are unique. Supposing another Election were to return to this House parties divided somehow as we are now? —it does not matter how much the variation in numbers might be, but if no one party has an absolute majority in the House, then whoever may take my place here, whoever makes himself responsible for the Government, will have to claim the privilege which I have just enunciated. Therefore, so far as that is concerned, although my position is the first of its kind up to now, it may not be the last of its kind even in our own lifetime. In some respects, however, my position is unique. For the first time the Labour party has made itself responsible for the Government of the country. We were suspected. The most violent efforts were made to create a panic as soon as it looked likely that we were to ft come in. I want to offer my most sincere thanks to those calm-minded, sane-minded and responsible men of business who told the country and investors not to make fools of themselves by playing into the hands of merely mischievous panicmongers. The result is that the security that my right hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Baldwin) tried hard to get, and failed to get, has been given to us. [Laughter.] If that laugh mean disagreement, it also indicates that no hon. Members opposite are possessors of gilt-edged securities in this country, for if they were, they would know perfectly well that since the Labour party came into power the value of their securities has substantially risen. But it is not ended yet.

POPLAR BOARD OF GUARDIANS ORDER.

want to appeal to the country to keep step. I see in the newspapers from day to day all sorts of stories about enormous loans that my colleagues are considering, enormous flotations of loans that are to be put on the market if we remain in office only for a week or two. It is all nonsense. No consideration has ever been given to such proposals. I am told also that the cancelling of a certain Order by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health (Mr. Wheatley) was the signal that "the red flag was to be flown by every board of guardians from John o' Groats to Lands End." I was amazed at it. Everyone knows perfectly well that that Order had ceased to operate. Everybody knows perfectly well that the question of the cancellation of the Order had been again and again under consideration in the Department concerned. Everybody knows perfectly well that as a matter of fact the Order has never been effective. Everybody knows perfectly well that an Act of Parliament was passed in 1923 which changed the methods by which extravagance by boards of guardians was to he checked.

Sir KINGSLEY WOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to say—

he PRIME MINISTER: I am sure that hon. Members will have plenty of opportunity of replying later. So small did the operation seem to the Department itself, so insignificant was the whole thing, that the Department took it for granted that the rescinding of the Order was nothing but a merely mechanical operation. In any event, whatever justification there may be for that, I can assure the House that what was done by the Minister of Health was no indication whatever that we intend to encourage sheer uneconomic extravagance on the part either of boards of guardians or of. any other spending authority in the country.
The country sooner or later had to become acquainted with the driving hand of labour, and I am very glad that it has come sooner. I feel perfectly certain that such stories as those told by the right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R Horne), when he set foot in this country, apparently at a time of the most excessive mental distress, after his arrival from Canada and his disembarkation from a
stormy sea, such statements as he made regarding, not what is in our mind, but what was in our nature—a somewhat (Efferent thing—regarding, not what we would deliberately set out to do, but what we were bound to do by the laws of God himself—being Labour, 'to destroy the nation, destroy its credit, make capital fly off in a state of wild excitement and terror and so on—the sooner that sort of thing is proved to be sheer rubbish the better it will be for everyone concerned I hope that the experience which the cot try and the Empire are to have of a Labour Government will make it absolutely impossible for any such statements to be made or any such ideas to be held.
The question arises, what is going to happen as far as the mind of the Government, in relation to the mind of the. country, is concerned? Are we going to pursue the policy of tranquility? No, we are not. We are going to pursue a fuller policy. We are going to pursue the policy of confidence; yes, confidence, not merely confidence in one section, but confidence on the part of the whole of the nation, confidence that will enable, for instance, all the sections engaged in the building of houses to put their hearts and' energies into their work—an aim and an ideal that hon. Members opposite might have been in office for half a century, and never would have attained. The confidence that is required to, produce houses is, a confidence that the people who build the houses will inhabit them. The confidence that is required to enable men and women to work wholeheartedly is a confidence that can be secured only when the reward of their labour is just, is fair, is equitable.
That confidence the Labour party, I hope, will give. National life to-day is far too much like anodd oasis here, and an odd oasis there, placed in the middle of a great surrounding desert of distress. I do not want the desert to swallow up the oases. I do want the oases, and my Government want the oases, to spread and spread and spread until they swallow up the desert. That is the distinction between hon. Members opposite and hon. Members here. In that spirit we are going to do our work. Do not let this House value too little that spirit. That is another of our distinctions. The spirit in which the work is going to be done
is all the more essential—it certainly ought to be all the more essential, since under Capitalism it has deteriorated so badly that "ca' canny" has become 1 policy of both sides. The spirit in which the work is to. be done is 'likely to be of the most profound importance if this country is going to be pulled together, and if everybody is going to work his best for the common well-being.

IMPERIAL CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS.

What do we propose to do? First of all, we must carry on the administration of the country. There are a large number of things of no party import at all, but of national import, and these we shall carry on. Up to the end of March, we shall have to ask the House to give up most of its time to financial business which we have inherited from our predecessors—Supplementary Estimates, in the main. We shall place before the House those Resolutions carried at the Imperial Economic Conference. Everyone of them will find a place on the Order Paper. We shall indicate our views regarding each, but the House itself must decide what its decision is going to be with regard to them. We shall place at the disposal of the House every item of information on the subject in the possession of the Departments, without regard to the conclusions that may be drawn from them. Having done that, we shall have done our duty, and being a minority here, we shall have to leave the responsibility to the Members of the House of Commons.

TREATIES.

There are two important agreements which have been signed and which must he ratified. There is the Treaty with Turkey signed at Lausanne, and the more recent Treaty, which, I am glad to say, has just been signed between France and Spain, regarding Tangier. I am informed at the Foreign Office that definite pledges have been made that the Treaty of Lausanne will be the subject of discussion in this House before it is ratified. I am glad of that, and I think that that should be the rule rather than the exception. In any event, I propose to give time for a discussion of the Treaty of Lausanne, and upon that, to take the decision of the House. I am also informed that there is a desire on the part of considerable sections of this
House to discuss the Treaty of Tangier. What I. propose to do regarding that Treaty is this—and perhaps it would not be bad if this were made a precedent for all Treaties.—I propose to have that Treaty printed without delay, and circulated. Should representations be made through the usual channels that a discussion is required upon it, then time will be granted for it.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are we to understand that the House will have to ratify it?

The PRIME MINISTER: The opinion of the House on the question of ratification will certainly be very important consideration for the Government, upon whose shoulders the responsibility of ratification rests. I understand, as far as this Treaty is concerned, that there are virtually no Papers worth laying on the Table. I have given instructions to have the matter looked into, and if I find that Papers are in existence which would be of any use or guidance to hon. and right hon. Members, I shall have those Papers laid. I think that at the moment it will be unnecessary to waste public money in producing any Papers at all.

IMPERIAL WIRELESS.

There is another very important matter to which I have fallen heir—fallen heir to it in a rather inconvenient form. I refer to Imperial wireless. I believe that for about 12 years this matter has been under consideration. On the day that the late Government was defeated, a letter was written from the Post Office, the effect of which was to create an absolute and a complete deadlock. Therefore, with my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General, we had to consider the whole matter do novo. If the Labour Government has any ambition at all, except to do sober, effective work, it has the ambition to try to do its work in a businesslike way, and as soon as we were faced with that difficulty, we appointed a small Committee to inquire into the whole situation. That Committee was appointed a week ago, and I hope that at the end of this week I am going to have a Report from it which will enable us to deal with the matter effectively at last. Papers and information will be made available for the House before the House is asked to implement what we shall propose as the way out of the difficulty.

EX-SERVICE MEN.

Then there is the matter of the ex-service men. We have already taken administrative powers to put an end to the internment of ex-service men whose reason was impaired in pauper institutions, and I feel perfectly certain that the House will condone us for having been in haste to do that justice, and to report it as a thing done, rather than a thing we intended to do. For whatever legislation be necessary in regard to what I have mentioned, we shall ask the support of the House of Commons.

I have in front of me, moreover, the King's Speech for which the party opposite is responsible. I find it not at all an inconvenient quarry, and if I take out of that quarry boulders a little bit bigger than probably would have come from it had hon. Members opposite remained here, I am sure, all the same, they will be a little sparing with the chisels they use to knock corners off the Bills which we produce. For instance, the Bills they promised us include Bills to improve the position of pre-War pensioners, and to deal with the discouragement of thrift involved in the present means limitation in the grant of Old Age Pensions. They also promised a probationary system of dealing with offenders, and Bills were to be introduced to amend and consolidate the Factories and Workshops Acts, and certain Bills relating to the subject of legitimisation. We shall carry on the inheritance that we have received in the King's Speech, and we hope to cultivate the field a little more amply than would have been done had we not come into office.

HOUSING.

There are one or two very large questions which any Government coming in now must strive to handle, or, at any rate, conceive in a large way. Small pettifogging methods and policies and proposals would be bound to yield nothing that is worth yielding. The first of these is Housing. The view of the Labour Government, quite generally, is this: that as regards the great problem of housing —as far as housing means the providing of homes for wage-earners that can be rented with some relation to their wageincome—we have only just touched the fringe of the problem. The Labour party want to get right into the heart of it.
We are considering at the present time the problem in its essential characteristics, and I hope that before long my right. hon. Friend the Minister of Health will be here presenting his detailed proposals. The first point to consider is this--and do not let us shirk our responsibilities, or avoid facing them—the housing problem can only be solved when decent. human homes are provided for the mass of the working classes of the country at rents that can be borne by the average income of those classes. The second consideration is that in the production of these homes it will be necessary, somehow or other, to get the material and the labour necessary for that production. The first point—the point of price—has been met since the War by subsidy. I am afraid that will have to continue. From the point of view of good sound economics, I dare say our strictly academic friends will point out that it is very wrong. As far as we are concerned, we are going to continue it, and at the present moment we are continuing it in relation to the problem of how we can build houses, on the average, for £500, and let them, on the average, for 9s. per week, including rent and rates.

That is the problem. It may have to be varied. I am not making a party speech. I am stating exactly what is in our minds, and telling the House exactly what will have to be in the minds of every Government that really faces this problem. It may have to be. varied. I said that the average price of the houses is £500, and that the average rent and rates is 9s. From that we have to work out all sorts of possibilities—possibilities of construction, possibilities of finance, possibilities of funding, possibilities of arranging with local authorities, and so on. From that foundation, and the exploration that. is going to follow it, our scheme will have to be produced. See what has happened before. Take the houses called the Addison houses. Not 10 per cent. of those houses are inhabited by the class of people whose needs must be met if we are going to solve the housing problem. Then the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. N. Chamberlain) produced a scheme, but apparently, as far as my information goes, that scheme is going to be fruitful, if it be fruitful at. all, in the building of houses for sale. That does not solve the problem. It is very essential that the
class of people catered for in that way ought to be catered for, and, as far as we are concerned, we shall do nothing against it. But nevertheless that is a mere thin fringe of a tremendously big problem, into the heart of which we are determined to dig our way, in the hope that we shall bring up some scheme which will really face, at last, this tremendous problem of how to house the wage-earners of this country.

LABOUR

Then we come to the problem of labour. We have had a great deal of criticism—and some of it indeed to-day—about how the only problem relating to the building of houses is trade union conditions, the refusal of dilution, and so on. It is nothing of the kind. That is not the problem. To-day we have only 50 per cent. of the men in the building trades whom we had in those trades before the War. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because private building has failed so utterly. The figures are indisputable. The trade had become so disorganised, the demands had become so intermittent, the ups-and-downs had become so normal, that no man or woman who had an alternative choice for his or her child ever thought of putting him into the building trade, because the uncertainties were so great that a decent person thinking of his child's welfare chose some other channel as his trade. That is the fundamental reason. Take the question of dilution. Apparently, a great many hon. Members in this House imagine that the way to solve the problem of dilution is just to open a door, and allow people to come in. I should like to ask what sort of houses are going to be built by a building trade recruited in that way? The laying of bricks is a highly skilled trade, and merely to talk about dilution and say, "All you want to do is to take men in," is to talk sheer nonsense.

What has happened? What is the way to face. this very difficult problem? The first thing is to give the building trade a guarantee of continuous work over a certain number of years. There is no harm in it, and there is no difficulty about it, because your shortage of houses now is so great that, all that is required is to create a programme which will stretch over a certain number of years. That is a guarantee of time, and that guarantee would have to be given, whether or not you had the. problem of shortage of labour,
because only upon a basis of a continued programme of houses can you construct a rational financial system by which you are going to solve the problem. But that is not all. The workmen, perfectly rightly, say: "If we are going to agree to a great inrush of men into the trade, in order to meet the convenience of the community, is it not right that we should ask the community to give us a concurrent guarantee that, in the course of the next 12 months or two years, that inrush is not going to be kissed to swamp us completely, to reduce our wages, and still further disorganise the trade? "I think that is a perfectly fair position for the workmen to take up. HON. MEMBERS:" Protection PI Then I can understand why so many hon. Members think that they are Protectionists. It is organisation, it is forethought—

Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. HALL: Protection of labour—that is what it is.

The PRIME MINISTER: It is organisation, it is forethought, it is foresight, it is the capacity that the State has, and can show, not of dealing with five or six men and two or three separate interests, but of dealing with the combined, coordinated, and unified interests of the whole of the community in the. production of houses.

Sir F. HALL: Disguised Protection:!

The PRIME MINISTER: That is our programme. What is the result? Government after Government has tried to bring the employers and employed together to come to an agreement. They have failed. We are going to succeed. We have already called a conference. The spirit of the conference has been admirable, and I have the greatest confidence that when my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health addresses this House upon his proposals, he will be able to inform the. House that a complete agreement has been come to, and that the question of-labour in production has been successfully solved.

Colonel Sir C. YATE: How many bricks a day?

The PRIME MINISTER: The number of bricks a day is a very old story, which apparently has never been accurately told, especially by those who really imagine. that all the ills in life arise from the fact that a bricklayer does not lay so and so many bricks a day.

Sir W. JOYNSON-HICKS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the statement is likely to be made in this Debate, or when we shall have a statement from the Minister of Health on this very important question?

The PRIME MINISTER: I would like very much had I been able to make it to-day. I was accused, when I asked for three weeks' vacation, of asking for too much. I wish I had been wiser, and asked for a little more. The three weeks have been weeks of rather full and strenuous work. The first conferences have been held. Consideration is now being given to the matter, reports are being prepared on both sides as to the suggested ways of meeting their difficulties, and as soon as my right hon. Friend is in a position to communicate the result to the House, that result will be communicated. I am sorry I cannot say. anything more than that, but I assure the House that no time is being wasted in getting the matter through. In the meantime, all schemes in hand are being pushed forward as rapidly as they possibly can be; nothing is being set on one side, nothing is being scrapped, nothing is being delayed, while these new investigations are going on which are going to be the basis of our new housing policy.

UNEMPLOYMENT.

Now there is the other question, the question of unemployment. Here, again, we are faced with a problem at which, in my view, we have hitherto rather nibbled. Two things have to be secured, and these we are working at: First, work; secondly, an effective income which is being supplied by the scheme of insurance if work cannot be provided. I think that is roughly the situation. There is not the least doubt that whatever Government face the problem of unemployment ought to face it, first of all, with the idea of putting the unemployed men back in their own work. Therefore, in so far as the Government can influence trade, that should be its first. point of attack. Consequently, we shall concentrate, not first of all on the relief of unemployment, but on the restoration of trade. We are not going to diminish industrial capital in order to provide relief. I saw the other day one of those periodical attacks upon us, by people who really do not know what they are writing about—attacks which assume
that. our only conception of capital is that we should raid it, distribute it for consumption, and so bring the nation to bankruptcy. [An HON. MEMBER: "Capital levy!"]

5.0 P.M.

I am very much obliged to the hon. Member for adding such a valuable footnote to the remark I have just made. I wish to make it perfectly clear that the Government have no intention of drawing off from the normal channels of trade large sums for extemporised measures which can only be palliatives. That is the old, sound, Socialist doctrine, and the necessity of expenditure for subsidising schemes in direct relief of unemployment will be judged in relation to the greater necessity for maintaining undisturbed the ordinary financial facilities and re sources of trade and industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hoar, hear !"] I am entirely gratified to find hon. Members opposite cheering such a good, sound Socialist doctrine, and I hope they will cheer the supplement to it. It is this, that, while we have to be economic and scientific in dealing with material capital, we must be equally economic and scientific in dealing with human capital. Therefore, any scheme dealing with unemployment must do both—must revive trade, and must in the meantime give adequate maintenance to those who are unemployed, pending the revival of trade. That is the complete scheme for dealing with unemployment. We, therefore, propose to speed up the Trade Facilities Act, which lapsed in November, 1923, and which requires to be reinvigorated. We shall deal with the Export Credits. and extend the period over which they will operate.. That does not mean, I am told, that we shall require to ask for money, because there are unexpended balances that will practically cover the extended period of the operation of the Act. Such a letter as that addressed to the late Prime Minister by Sir Allan Smith has already been taken into consideration, and will be made the subject of proposals later on. So much for the extension of trade facilities.

NATIONAL DEBT.

One of the great factors in connection with this is the financial position of the country, and upon that we shall have to make a proposal a little later on.
The position to-day is this: Owing partly to our National Debt, the cost of production is high. Owing to the unsettled state of Europe, international exchange is against honest countries that are paying their Debts and balancing their budgets. We are paying our Debt, and balancing our Budget. Therefore our industry is being somewhat hit by the fact that the currency in certain countries when spent on the markets of those countries is of relatively higher value than when it is sent abroad, and translated into sound currency. The Cabinet must consider the whole question of the National Debt. It has to consider how far certain forms of taxes enter directly into the cost of production, and hamper the trade of the country, how far certain other taxes are only taxes upon luxuries, and by their imposition do not in any way hamper the industrial development of Great Britain.

I think the best course is that a really authoritative Committee should he appointed. I know Committees sometimes appointed by hon. Members below the Gangway have been appointed for the purpose of shelving questions. But here, with a colossal Debt, with an enormous revenue to be raised under conditions that almost defy scientific accuracy in the distribution of its burden. this country is faced with a financial problem, a budgetary problem, that it has never had to face until the first financial results of the War began to be felt. [An HON. MEMBER: "A hundred years ago."] Conditions now are altogether different. If ever it was necessary to have a complete, an honest, an able, a scientific survey of our national finance. I think now is the time to have it. I believe it is possible to create such a Committee. I believe it to be possible to get men of business, men in the actual production side of business, the finance side of business—economists, men of experience, men whose work and whose judgment will be accepted by the whole intelligent business community. I believe an exploration by such a Committee would be one of the greatest benefits that could come, and one of the best. guarantees the Chancellor of the Exchequer could have. So much for normal, ordinary business itself. Everything we can do will be done to stimulate it.
Then take relief works. They also have to he taken into account. All I would say with regard to this is that land drainage, which is very, very important at the present time, the development of light railways, a wise expenditure of the Road Fund, not in the interests of the unemployed only—we want to be perfectly right in regard to the Road Fund, which is not a fund from which unemployed work alone ought to he paid for —but a wise expenditure of the Road Fund which will help to relieve unemployment, and which, at the same lime, will substantially increase the efficiency and utility of our roads, will certainly be undertaken. The Unemployment Grants Committee will be encouraged to continue its work. If all that be successful, it will vastly increase the wealth of the country, more particularly the land, more particularly the power put into the hands of the owners of land to exact an enhanced rent out of the capital expenditure found by the nation at large. That will have to be considered. Some of that will have to come hack again into national resources.

With reference to what I have been saying, foreign policy, of course, occupies a very important position. The Government have decided to recognise Russia. In a few minutes I will explain what is going to follow, but I say here, in connection with trade, that., while I am sure there will be a considerable impetus to trade as soon as the recognition of Russia is made complete by certain agreements of an economic character, we must not be too impatient in reaping the harvest. But the great regret I have to express is that we have had to wait until February, 1924, to take the first step in a policy which is absolutely essential for the revival of our foreign trade. There is the specially difficult question of enabling women to benefit under the unemployment schemes, and in the efficient hands of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Miss Bondfield) I am sure that will not be allowed to suffer, because the whole House knows that she has very intimate knowledge of the subject' which has been put under her charge.

Dr. MACNAMARA: When are we going to have the detailed schemes for present unemployment, and adequate maintenance if out of work?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am just coming to the Insurance Fund, but, as to the details, every Department concerned is working at the present moment full steam ahead to get the schemes produced, and, as I say, it is impossible to expect a Cabinet for the first time to go into Departments, take charge of the offices, and produce such schemes as those within three weeks. But what was necessary, and what, I think, we have done, is to take those schemes with a general conception of the nature of the problem, and of what has to he solved, and I am trying to indicate the lines upon which we are going in order to do that.

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT.

I come to the point when we deal with "doles," as they are called, or insurance. Two expedients have been adopted which never had any rational foundation, and sooner or later they had to be abolished. The one is the expedient of the "gap," and the other is the expedient of selection in regard to uncovenanted benefit. The gap is that the unemployed person shall, at certain times, for a period of three weeks, be off unemployment benefit. Why? He has to come on the rates, or make a. living somehow. Does any hon. Member mean to say that a gap of three weeks in a long period of unemployment has any moral or economic value to the man himself? It has no value at all. It is irritating, it is unjust, and it cannot be defended on sound principles. Take the selection in connection with uncovenanted benefit. What is the position there? You get men and women who belong to insured trades falling out of the covenanted benefit, and then refused uncovenanted benefit, because the committees have the right to decide whether they ought to receive that uncovenanted benefit of charity or goodwill, or whether they should be compelled to pay for it. Imagine a person who is refused it! In a short time he gets into work. His next-door neighbour has had benefit, but as soon as the person who has not had uncovenanted benefit returns to work, he, from his wages, has to pay for the uncovenanted benefit enjoyed by his neighbour, but refused to himself. Can that possibly be tolerated Had we said: "If you get no uncovenanted benefit your contribution to the Insurance Fund, from which the benefit is paid, will
be by that amount reduced," you would stand on reasonable ground. But that is an impossible expedient. Therefore the Government propose to abolish both the gap and the selection in connection with uncovenanted benefit.

I pass to another subject of the very greatest national importance—I mean agriculture.

Captain Viscount CURZON: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the subject of unemployment benefit, can he give us any indication of the cost of his proposals?

Mr. BUCHANAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to make any change in the allowance for the children?

The PRIME MINISTER: The question of benefit is still under review, and will be dealt with in connection with the whole scheme, which will be the subject of a statement made in the House as soon as possible. The whole of these problems are under review, but the two decisions come to are the abolition of the gap and the abolition of the power of Committees to select for uncovenanted benefit.

Viscount CURZON: What about the cost?

The PRIME MINISTER: The cost comes out of the Insurance Fund, and does not come from the State.

Viscount CURZON: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us approximately what the cost will be?

The PRIME MINISTER: Oh, yes, the cost from the fund of the gap is not going to be more than £500,000. The cost of the uncovenanted benefit is rather difficult to estimate yet, but it is not going to be more than about £4,000,000, and it may be as little as £2,000,000. Let us be perfectly clear about this, that the money is not found from State funds. It is found by the Insurance Fund from which it is drawn—a fund which will be made good as soon as trade resumes its normal position. Persons who are now receiving benefit from the fund are contributing, I think, ls. 7d. a week in order to make good the deficit of the fund.

AGRICULTURE.

We come to agriculture. In agriculture we have a subject of the most pressing national interest. I have not shared the views of the agriculturist who said the
industry was "on its last legs." There is plenty of evidence to show that is not the case. A great fault committed by those fellow-citizens of ours who are always telling us they are on the brink of ruin is that they always live from season to season. When a good season comes, they say nothing about it. When a bad season conies, all they do is to produce to their own minds and to us the figures of the bad season. and try to convince us that that is a normal and average condition of the industry in which they are engaged. Far from it I There is not the least doubt about it that even now careful bookkeeping on the part of large numbers of farmers does not exist, and one of the services now being given by the Ministry of Agriculture to the farming industry is to supply them with professional gentlemen who can tell them how to keep books and accounts with. sufficient accuracy to enable them to see how their business goes from year to year. There are some other schemes that must receive immediate attention. There is, for instance, the question of rating—not necessarily agricultural rating, but the whole question of rating.

Captain TERRELL: May I ask when we are going to have the right hon. Gentleman's agricultural policy?

The PRIME MINISTER: There is the question of rating. Government after Government has promised to deal with this subject, and I have not the least doubt has tried to deal with it, but has failed. The Labour Government is going to make an attempt. The whole question of rating is due for revision, not for farmers, but for everybody. The Government proposes to bend its attention to this subject, and hopes, with a fair amount of luck before it will be time for it to leave these benches, and either transfer to those opposite or go to the country—it will have produced its scheme for readjustment and reform. No interest in the country would benefit more from a rating based on scientific principles than the agriculturist, the farmer who is farming his land, and who is not going to he charged with rates for improvements upon it. So far as we are concerned we shall not touch tariffs nor bounties. Both tariffs and bounties are wrong. They only help to encourage inefficiency. They induce the towns to regard agriculture as something that preys upon them. They cannot be
confined to agriculture and agriculture. produce alone. Bounties in particular, and also tariffs—but bounties in particular, must be attended by an oppressive control, for no Government in its senses would ever make large presents of public money to an industry, and then say to that industry: "You can covey on your work in any way you like.'' Control of the most definite, detailed, and oppressive kind must accompany any system of bounties given to farmers. 1 am perfectly certain that, in these circumstances, farmers would not agree to it. What agriculture requires is a stimulus to fight its own battle. I was talking to an eminent agriculturist only the other day, arid a remark he made to me was this: "If we could get all our agriculturists to farm as efficiently as the 20 or 25 per cent. at the top, there would be very little agricultural problem in this country." That is the spirit and the line upon which the Government propose to work, and, therefore, we select co-operation as the best means for aiding, developing, and stimulating the agricultural industry.

WAGES BOARDS.

The Government propose to support, either by loans or by guarantees, co-operative enterprises controlled by the agricultural community, organized and directed mainly to deal with agricultural produce, the buying of the raw materials, seeds, manure, the buying of implements of cultivation, the supplying of markets, and all those processes necessary to make agriculture a paying and prosperous concern in this country. The Government feel perfectly convinced that all extraneous aids to agriculture are only likely to result in a further deterioration of the agricultural mind, and an increased tendency and process on the part of farmers to trust to the power of the State and their influence in Parliament to get doles from the public purse, instead of solving their own problems by applying their own energy. [An HON. MEMBER: "Undiluted individualism."] The organisation of farmers' co-operative enterprises by farmers working as a function of the community, founded, encouraged, ex tended by State credit, is a form of individualism which the founders and the defenders of individualism would not know from Socialism. Under agriculture, and in connection with the idea of
stimulus, the Government propose to set up again the Wages Boards. [An Hoer MEMBER: "For agricultural labourers?"] Yes, for agricultural labourers. In some parts we are informed that wages are again falling below the 25s. a week minimum. How any farmer can imagine that he is going to get value from a labourer whose income in these times is under 25s. a week I do not understand. [An HON. MEMBER "He does not! Well, if he does not, the stimulus to compel him to regard labour as the first charge on industry will enormously improve him as a farmer, and increase the efficient cultivation of his land. There is nothing that is more uneconomical, even on bad land, than sweated labour, anti by the re-establishment of Wages Boards, which will work in districts, we shall create a stimulus which, instead of being more hampering to the farmer, will compel the farmer to use more efficient expedients than he has used hitherto, in order to make good use of his labour and land. The whole point. is—and this is the general idea of the Government—that, until we get the farming community stimulated to organise itself, and to function as it has done in Denmark, for instance, nothing else is going to be of real and substantial benefit to the agricultural community of this country.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

I have one further word to say, and that is about foreign affairs. In that connection I must explain to the House that, when I had to consider whether I would or would not take the Foreign Office, the thing that weighed with me most of all was this: Foreign affairs, the relations of this country with Europe, and the position of this country in Europe had become so unsatisfactory that I believed it would he a great advantage if, whoever was Prime Minister was also Foreign Secretary, in order to give the weight of office to any sort of policy that one might devise. I do not know if I was rash or not, but in the end I decided that, for the time being, at any rate—until some of the preliminaries were cleared away, and prospects got a little better, I would venture to unite the two offices, and I will do my best to carry on both, on the clear understanding that as soon as I feel that I can relieve myself of the one. I shall do so.

Now as Foreign Minister I recognised Russia without delay, and with the full approval of the Government. The point of view I took was this: I want to settle all the outstanding points between Russia and ourselves. It is a very big job, certainly it is a job that somebody sooner or later had to face, an I made up my mind to face it, to tackle it. I made up my mind on this at the same time, that., if you try to face those things—debt, foreign relations, treaties of doubtful validity, disagreements which were threatening war almost every day. propaganda North, South, East and West—if any Foreign Secretary sat down, and tried to settle those questions with a representative of Russia who was not even a chargé d' affaires, if he lived to the age of Methusaleh, he never would settle them. The preliminary for settlement was recognition. Therefore I recommend the Cabinet to recognise Russia, and that was done.

I see that some papers have said that after thinking the matter over for a week the Soviet authorities replied. That is not true. It is not. fair. I knew that an All-Russia Soviet with about 2,000 representatives gathered from the utmost borders of the Socialist Republic was sitting in Moscow. I knew that it was the supreme authority in the Russian Government, and I made up my mind that. the message of recognition, the despatch of recognition should go there. It went there, and within an hour of its receipt a message of the most cordial character was on its way to the Foreign Office here. It is perfectly true that it was only some days after that when 1 received a letter from Mr. Tchitcherin. The explanation was that the message from the Soviet, having been sent by wire, Mr. Tchitcherin sent his message by post. That. is the explanation of the four or five days which some of the newspapers say was taken by Mr. Tchitcherin in considering our proposal. Not. a day was lost. The acceptance has been most cordial, and the first steps have already been taken in consequence.

I now propose to send to Moscow a complete statement. of all our outstanding differences. absolutely complete as far as we have them, at any rate, at the Foreign Office. I propose that we should revive at once—In fact we have done so—all pledges made
by the Soviet Government regarding debts and so on. The Soviet Government has agreed to appoint Russian members to an Anglo-Russian Commission, to which would be referred all the details regarding the debts, and such other questions from the catalogue of outstanding points which would be referred to it by agreement. between the representatives of Russia in this country and myself. In that way debts, credits, and South Sea difficulties, the territorial waters trouble, and so on—

Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly say what he means by "credits"? Does he mean the conditions under which private credits might become available, or does he mean credits from Government to Government?

The PRIME MINISTER: The question of credits would be proposed by the Russian Government, and not by us, but I have no intention of going any further, so far as Government credit is concerned, than overseas credit, trade facilities credit, and such things as have already in principle been approved regarding other countries by the House of Commons, and I have no reason to doubt that would be quite adequate. But the point is this: The preliminaries to the agreements have already been made, and before this week is out, I hope that Mr. Rakovsky will be on his way to Moscow to get final instructions from the Government regarding the opening up of these negotiations. After that happens, I feel perfectly certain we shall be able to settle all these questions in a very short time. One of the most important of these questions is that. of propaganda against us, upon which I shall certainly insist. At the same time, let us be fair. Supposing we were in their position, supposing they were in ours, and they had refused to recognise us. They had fought a war against us, they had spent their national money in trying to foment revolution inside our country, and then we were able to do them damage in their territories. What should we have done? As a matter of fact., the sooner that we close the volume of our Russian transactions the better. I propose to close that volume as quickly as possible and to open a new one, upon which I hope more amicable messages and stories will be written than the one which has just closed.

Lieut.-Colonel J. WARD: Do not give them our money, that is all!

Sir A. SHIRLEY BENN: May I ask if any settlements agreed to by the AngloRussian Commission will come before the House of Commons for approval?

The PRIME MINISTER: Everything that is necessary will come before the House of Commons. It is no use asking me now what is coming, because I cannot say. We are now engaged in setting up this Commission, and in getting into direct contact with the Moscow Government so as to begin our work, and it will be pushed ahead with the least possible delay. Anything requiring to be sanctioned will be put before the House of Commons. The work has begun, not merely the recognition, but the economical and political consequences of recognition have now begun to show themselves.
So much for Russia. When I went to the Foreign Office I was faced with a very serious situation in Central Europe. Our relations with France had been drifting, and were anything but pleasant. There was a feeling of insecurity all round. There was an unhappy sort of scramble for alliances—a policy only half understanding itself, of finding hero and there and elsewhere a possible ally in a possible time of danger or of need, and one felt even more instinctively than saw written down on paper, although there was enough there—what one felt was that unless there were a change in all this, we were going to get back into a most hopeless condition, which would only have resulted in a fresh outbreak of a big European war in our lifetime perhaps, and the result would be more armaments, new alliances, a recrudescence of the policy of the balance of power, and finally the inevitable war. That was the situation in the Ruhr, with its dozens of baffling problems—none really baffling to reason, but every one very trying to one's serenity of temper. My immediate troubles were in the Palatinate, with its Separatism, regarding the railway policy of the Regie round about Cologne.
I cannot make a full statement to-day about these things, much to my regret, because the is have not been dotted and the i's have not been crossed yet. But I am very happy to say that unless something very unforeseen happens—and I do
not think it will—I hope that a complete agreement will be come to within the next few days.
>
I must take this, the first opportunity, of paying my tribute to the instant and hearty co-operation of M. Poincaré to the approaches that I made on this subject. My first task was to create a healthier atmosphere I had to make a gesture, and wait to see if it was responded to. It is these psychological matters, that are far more important than clever despatches, however politely handed by ambassadors to ministers, which are nevertheless thrown like bricks at their head, our diplomacy must be perfectly straight and absolutely frank. It must be perfectly straight. It must be quite considerate, asking only for a similar response on the part of the other side. France has nothing to fear from any policy that we may pursue. We may not be able to agree with everything that she does. We do not expect her to follow our desires, but nothing ought to arise between us, and I am, sure nothing will which good will and honest dealing cannot settle. We must consider such problems as Reparations and the Ruhr from the point of view of France, Great Britain and Europe, and do everything to find a satisfactory agreement. Above all, and thin is very essential, we must both remember that time is running a very tragic race against us.

Mr. RONALD McNEILL: May I ask one question on the important and interesting statement just made? Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House any particular in which his policy differs from that of his predecessor?

The PRIME MINISTER: I think I had better not. Let me explain that what I have been saying was not said for the purpose of drawing a distinction between the right hon. Gentleman and myself, and I am very sorry he should have raised that idea. What I have in mind and what I have said is for the purpose of making our policy clear to the world. I am responsible for the moment for our policy, and am not going to mix myself up either with my predecessors or with my successors. Neither M. Poinearé nor I have any illusions with regard to the
policy of reconciliation and accommodation which we are pursuing, but if we pursue it in the spirit in which our work has been begun, before the year's end France and Great Britain should be wholeheartedly co-operating with every nation in Europe in establishing the conditions of a European settlement. I can say nothing on those large questions until I get the reports of the Reparations Sub-Committees, which are working hard in Paris and Berlin. Reparations remain the first bar to a general settlement. As soon as these Committees have declared their decision, and the Reparation Commission has considered and pronounced upon it, I think the time will have come for a complete re-survey of all the problems, debts and everything else, with the intention of attacking them in detail, and clearing them out of the way.

ARMAMENTS AND LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The final aim of the Foreign Secretary must be to come to an agreement upon armaments. That is the test of a successful Foreign Secretary. I have that at the back of my mind. I feel quite sure that if things are properly handled, France and the other nations of Europe will see that the great security of a nation is not in armaments, but in the justice of the position it holds in the world. I am going to use all the energy I possess to increase the representative character and authority of the League of Nations. I am hoping the League of Nations will be used more and more, as the international body for the settlement of questions that. two nations themselves find it impossible to settle direct. Many opportunities will arise for giving that belief of mine an opportunity of being tested, and I shall take them.

Germany must come in. I hope Russia will come in too. We ought all to be in. As far as America is concerned, it would ill become me or this House to give any advice. We are working away primarily at a European problem, and I feel sure that as soon as America knows that that problem is being worked at from a new point of view with enthusiasm and idealism—from a point of view which does not mean more, expenditure on armaments, and as soon as America feels there is something large, something moral in the spirit in which these problems are
being approached, we shall not then have to go cap in hand to America to beg her to come in. America will be perfectly willing to take its share in doing this great work for humanity.

I really must apologise to the House for this terrible draft upon its time. I was hoping to have been very much quicker, but I felt we could not coerce Members on the opposite side. I cannot ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury to put 300 odd men into one Lobby. I could not say to my hon. Friends opposite, "You can put as many men in the other Lobby as you like, but I am all right." Therefore, I wanted to try and make a first contribution to the new political tactics that must be adopted in this House, and to attempt to explain what our ideas are, so that, at any rate, the House may understand what is in our minds, and what we shall try to carry out in definite proposals. My final appeal and statement is this.

The Government will concern itself with what it considers to be great national and international interests, which it will present to this House from its own standpoint. Coalitions are detestable, are dishonest. It is far better, I am perfectly certain, for the political life of our country, and for the respect, in which we desire to be held by colleagues who 'disagree with us, that we should express our views as an independent political party, bring those views before the House of Commons, and ask it to take the responsibility of amending, accepting, or rejecting them. Therefore from our own point of view, we shall bring before this House proposals to deal with great national and international problems, and we are not afraid of what fate we may meet in the process. If we wind up this week, if misfortune befall us before the week come to an end, we shall have made our mark on the history of these islands, and we shall have done something, in the recognition of Russia, towards the beginning of a new European policy.

In the new attitude towards France we shall have started a fresh and successful exploration of problems that, had they not been taken in hand now, probably would have proved themselves insoluble and, in consequence, the nations of Europe would have been doomed to go through once more the horrible operations of armaments and war. This
country requires stimulation in its hopes; it requires to settle down to trade and development. It requires to be given courage and confidence, so that it may use its latent power, and, above all, the common man and the common woman must be brought into partnership of national prosperity. The unemployed, the partially unemployed, all must be taught that when we are talking here of national greatness and prosperity, we mean them to share that greatness. We mean them to be partners in that prosperity, and unless we can assure them of that, we shall never be content that we are doing our duty., I have ventured to appeal to everybody, whatever their class or function may be, that at this time of irrational timorousness, when pessimism and optimism are striving for mastery—I appeal to everybody, I appeal to the House, to go out with hope, to go out with determination, to go out not for tranquillity, but for security and confidence based on good will, and to be just and worthy of respect. In that spirit the Labour party propose to act.

Mr. BALDWIN: I agree to the Motion for the Adjournment. After the statement we have heard, surpassing in its interest and the variety of subjects it has dealt with, a variety much greater than we could have anticipated, I am sure it will be for the general convenience of the House that the Debate should be resumed to-morrow so that we may have an opportunity of considering the right hon. Gentleman's speech.

Mr. ASQUITH: I agree entirely with what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bewdley (Mr. Baldwin). After a speech covering such a vast variety of topics—and necessarily so; I am not complaining of it—it is desirable that we should have time to study it at leisure before we resume the Debate upon it. As a matter of Order, should not the Motion be, "That the Debate be now adjourned"? If the present Motion be carried, the House will adjourn at once, and I presume the same Motion would be moved to-morrow.

6.0 P.M.

Mr. SPEAKER: The Motion would be repeated to-morrow.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I would draw the attention of the House to
the fact that there is a. private Member's Bill on the Paper for 8.15. We have been warned by the Prime Minister, in his extremely interesting speech, that he will be forced to take a good deal of the time of private Members. Is there any way of saving the opportunity for my hon. Friend, who has this Bill on the Paper, to bring it forward again at 8.15? If there is no way of doing that, I propose to resist the Motion for Adjournment, and I beg to ask your ruling on that question.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not quite see what is the hon. and gallant Member's point. If the House adjourn, it adjourns.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: that case one of the few remaining opportunities of private Members is lost. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. F. Gray) desires to bring in a Bill of some importance, or, at any rate, one which he considers to be of importance, and I think it is extremely unfair to the hon. Member and those who support the Bill. Furthermore, I rather agree with what was said by an hon. Member at Question Time to-day, namely, that we have had quite enough adjournments in this House. I do not propose to make anything in the nature of a speech now, but 1 should like to ask one question of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and, in reference to thin, I would point out to other private Members that we now have three Front Benches instead of two, and that it will be very necessary for the back bench to assert its rights. I say that, of course, with great respect to the orators who hold forth from those three Front Benches; but this is a Parliamentary day in a Parliament which will be all too short if the right hon. Gentleman is going to carry out one-half of what he has foretold to-day. It is one of our few opportunities as private Members, and I propose, therefore, to take very brief advantage of it, and to ask my right hon. Friend two questions on the statement that he has made. I do not know if he proposes to exercise his right of winding-up the Debate to reply, but, if not, no doubt one of his many able colleagues will supply the omission.
The first question I wish to ask is with reference to his remarks about credits for Russia. I understand that it is not proposed to grant Government credits outside the Overseas Trade (Credits and
Insurance) Act and the Trade Facilities Act. May I ask the Government if it is proposed at once to extend the Overseas Trade (Credits and Insurance) Act to Russia. I would remind the House that for the present it is extended to Austria, Germany, Rumania, Poland, Turkey, our own Colonies and India. It is extended to late enemies, to Allies, and to neutrals. Is there any reason at all why that Act should not be extended to Russia? It would not give credits to Russia at all; it would give credits to British merchants who want to trade with Russia. I have a reason for asking this question. A friend of mine, who is engaged in doing very useful business with that country, and bringing employment to our own workers, called at the Department of Overseas Trade and inquired about this matter for his own benefit and for the benefit of the people whom he employs; and he was informed that so far the Government had given no instructions in the matter, and nothing whatever was known about it. I do not want. to press my right hon. Friend in any way. This happened since he took office, and I quite agree that three weeks is all too short. a time. and that, he has a tremendous lot to do—he has a very bad mess to clear up. Speaking for myself, and, I know, for most of my Friends, we shall give him all the help we can. We are not going to pin-prick or obstruct him; we want to help him. This is simply a question of extending credits to British subjects who want to send goods to Russia, as we extend the same facilities to British merchants who want to send goods to Poland, or Austria, or Turkey, or certain British Dominions. I think that this is a constructive suggestion, and that the Government ought to consider it as a bargaining point in regard to Russia. They are giving away nothing whatever. It is no particular attraction to the Russian Government. The trade that they do not do with us they do with Germany. They- are doing a good deal more trade with Germany than with us, and I am quite certain that our friends across the Channel are going to be there as soon as the markets are opened up. 'They are to a certain extent already, and it is not giving any particular bribe or bargaining power to the Russians. I would urge the Government to extend the Act as soon as possible to Russia, for the benefit of our own merchants and our own workers.
With regard to my other question, I would particularly ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to lend me his ears. I had a question down to-day with reference to a scheme for improving the transport facilities of the East coast of England. It has been before Parliament now, in one form or another, for something like N or 60 years. I refer to the urgently felt need of a tunnel for railway work, and also now for road work as well—really two tunnels are needed--under the Humber estuary. Because I happen to represent one of the divisions of. Hull, this is not to be taken as being only a Hull question. It is not anything of the sort. It does affect the port of Hull, but it affects the whole of the East coast of England. It affects Lincolnshire and the rapidly growing iron ore field of Studhorses, and altogether it is really a matter of national importance. The Government which preceded that of my right hon. Friend took the same attitude that his Minister took to-clay in answer to my question, namely that some person or persons would have to put forward a concrete scheme to the Government. This sort of thing, however, cannot be put forward by the corporation of one city, and it is impossible for the corporation of one city to get together all the other local authorities and interests to work out a scheme. They have not the time, and they have not the facilities. What should be done in a case of this sort is that the Ministry of Transport should explore the ground thoroughly and see whether this tunnel would not be a great advantage to the East coast transit trade, to railway and road communication along the whole East coast of England, and whether it would not be one means of relieving unemployment. I maintain that they would find that it would be one of the very schemes to which my right hon. Friend referred as increasing the wealth of the nation, as well as giving employment. It is not relief work; it ought to have been done years ago. If this country were France or Germany, there would have been two or three tunnels. We have been behindhand in tackling schemes of national importance like this, and now my right hon. Friend has a supreme opportunity for meeting this great need.
These question are important questions. I hope they are constructive, and I hope
they will be received in the spirit in which I have put them to the Government. I hope also, for the sake of the prestige of Parliament, that this Debate will be continued. I do not think it should be necessary for the Leader' of the Opposition to have 24 hours' notice before he makes a speech in reply to the Prime Minister. I am sure that, if he is not prepared to reply at once, he has many very able colleagues who can do so. At any rate, I hope I am speaking for some of the back benchers, male and female, who resent these continual adjournments of Parliament., involving, as they do, the cutting down of the time available to back bench Members for representing the interests of their constituencies and making constructive suggestions.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD: Having pro tested in the early stages of this Parliament against the obliteration of private Members, I am not likely to miss an opportunity, which is most probably about the only one the private Member will have, of' taking part in a Debate of the character of that which has been introduced to-day. Therefore, I am going to presume that this is really a conspiracy between the three Front Benches to give the private Member a chance, and see what he makes of it. So far as I am concerned, I should certainly wish to congratulate the Prime Minister upon the moderation of the speech that he has delivered to-day. I should imagine that it could have been made by the Leader of any one of the three parties in the House. It seems to me that very little change has been made except a change in name. Of course, there may be different methods of applying different remedies, but I do not think there is anything in the Premier's speech this afternoon with which I could not thoroughly agree, with the exception of one thing to which I am going to refer, especially as it has something to do—although I take a completely opposite view of the situation--with the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Ken-worthy), a moment or two ago, with reference to Russia.
The Government have rapidly and without much consideration—largely, I suppose, because they gave their pledges at the Election—recognised the Soviet Government; but, in spite of what the Premier may say, there is not the slightest
doubt that the Soviet Government took time to consider whether this recognition was of the slightest value to them, or Whether it was merely an attempt to throw away some of the wreckage of the General Election, and not intended to benefit them in the slightest degree. Anyone who knows Russia, and who knows the situation of the present Soviet Government, knows perfectly well that mere recognition is of no consequence to them at all; and mere recognition is of no consequence to us either. There must be something more than that. The allegation is made that this proposal is put forward for the purpose of creating fresh trade and fresh employment for our people, to save the squandering of the dole upon thousands, and maybe millions, of our people at home. If there were any truth in that, that would be some justification; but everyone knows that,' as between country and country, trade has been perfectly free between Russia and England during the last three or four years. There has not been a single regulation or other like difficulty in the way of carrying on international trade between Russia and England. The only difficulty has been that the English trader has no confidence whatever in the country with which it is proposed that he should trade. Russia knows that perfectly well. Recognition will not add a single ton or a single sailor to the mercantile fleet required; not a single sovereign will pass more or less than if recognition had never been granted. Therefore, the crux of the whole subject is really contained in the word "credits." There is no doubt what the connection ought to be between us and them, but it is not the mere recognition of one Government by another that they want. It is our money they want. Everyone knows that. And they would throw your recognition into the wastepaper basket to-morrow if it were not that in the negotiations which are now about to take place they hope to get hold either of your money or your credit, which will be equal to the money. That is exactly the situation and it is an attempt really to hoodwink the public. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) said it is only to give the British trader credit. Quite The
Government gives him credit until such
time as he can get his payment from the other side. If he never gets it it is the British taxpayer who will be paying for this trade. [Interruption.]

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The hon. and gallant Gentleman has not understood my meaning. I was referring to the overseas trade scheme, which only insures the British merchant for his loss.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD: There was au interruption by an hon. Member above the gangway that the British taxpayer supported Koltchak.

Mr. WALLHEAD: And you as well.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD: The only thing is that I know what I am talking about and you do not. I was there and know exactly what the British money was spent on, and it was nothing compared with what you suggest.

Mr. WALLHEAD: I am talking about, tho money that was spent. You had some of it.

Lieut.-Colonel WARD: It would have been much better for Russia had Koltchak succeeded. But that is the situation. It is entirely one of getting hold of our money or our credit. If we are to help the trade of this country, why should we particularly direct our attention and give facilities to our traders and merchants and employers of labour to trade with a country which has no position financially, which can give no security in return and whose word is, not to be trusted, whether it is verbal or in writing? Would it not be infinitely better, if the taxpayers' money must be spent in supporting the development of industries, that we should try to direct our energies into supporting trade with those countries which we know will act honestly towards those with whom they are trading? The mere fact that it happens to call itself a Socialist Government ought not to weigh with us in deciding in what direction we shall try to steer the trade of the country. I am not going to oppose recognition, because it is not worth talking about. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why are you talking about it?"] The reason I am talking about it is the mere incident that you are trying to make out to the public that it is the recognition of one Government by another, whereas I am convinced that they do not care two pence about your recognition, but that it is your people's
money they want and that you seem to be prepared to give it.
The next subject on which I should like to say a word or two is that part of the Prime Minister's speech dealing with the relations of this country and France. I wish him well in his efforts to make arrangements with the Prime Minister of France, but I am sure he will find it much more difficult than he anticipates at the moment. I can never believe that the four or five statesmen who have attempted to deal with this situation as between ourselves and France have failed so lamentably because they were so deficient in tact as compared with the right hon. Gentleman. I feel certain there is something much more difficult than that, and while I wish him well I hope at least he will keep a stiff upper lip, and that he will not start by imagining that it is so easy as it appears to be and that at any rate, having the interests of our country in his keeping, in his dealings with France --because as a rule pacifists are the most belligerent people we have—that is when dealing with their own countrymen; they are generally only pacifists to the foreigner over the border—he will make plain the position which has been taken up by previous Governments, because I believe the statement issued by Lord Curzon in August restated the position as I understand it. Generally speaking, there is not a sentiment outside those two subjects with which I would seriously disagree with the Prime Minister. He has taken up the Liberal programme and he has taken up the King's Speech which was adumbrated by the leaders of the Opposition, and it seems to me that he ought to have a pleasant passage at least during the first year. I should have more confidence, though my hon. Friends opposite may not think so, when once it was agreed in principle, in those hon. Gentlemen opposite applying those principles effectively and efficiently than even in those who adumbrated them. I believe at least that you are determined to do something, that it is not mere window dressing that you are giving us to-day. [An HON. MEMBER: "Yours is!"] You may think so. I do not. I do not think yours is, at any rate, I will give you that much credit, and if you honestly apply the policy which has been put forward by the Prime Minister to-day, and there is no snag in it, and it is really your good intention and deter-
mination that we have been listening to, you may rely, for whatever it is worth, on my support in carrying it out. The Prime Minister has put us upon our honour. He has put the position that there are three parties in the House. There is no one party capable of browbeating or ignoring the opinion of the other, and if he really places the House of Commons and the ordinary private Member upon his honour in assisting him in carrying out the programme which has been laid before us, I believe he will find the House will respond generally to his appeal.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: I wish to join in the protest which other private Members have made against the apparent conspiracy between the three Front Benches to deprive the rank and file of an opportunity of giving expression to the responsibilities committed to them by their constituents. It is true that possibly a full dress Debate on the 'comprehensive speech of the Prime Minister might more fittingly take place to-morrow, but there are other questions which are quite in order on the Adjournment which have come before us during the Recess and which we may not have an opportunity of ventilating if we allow this opportunity to go past. Therefore, I would like to lay before the House and the Lord Privy Seal one or two questions which were referred to by the Prime Minister, but which have also been before the constituencies for some considerable time. The Prime Minister referred to the necessity of putting in hand a larger scheme of road transport, and yet in answer to a question from me earlier in the day the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport said the limit of 50 per cent. must be adhered to because of insufficiency of funds at the disposal of the Government. How often have we heard from our friends when they sat on that side as to the futility of paying away millions of money in unemployed benefit and poor relief instead of using larger sums to put in hand work of a productive character. I hope the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport will reconsider this question whether it would not be wise to carry out those larger schemes which the Prime Minister adumbrated and to increase the percentage of 50 which is at present allowed in the carrying out of important road schemes. Surely where you have local authorities whose rates
are 20s. or more in the you can hardly expect them to add to the burden of their ratepayers in order to put in hand schemes which are of no immediate benefit to them, but which in the future may be valuable assets to the community as a whole. These various arterial roads which are foreshadowed by combinations of local authorities will undoubtedly be of national value in years to come, but the immediate return to the district that undertakes them is a negligible quantity, and you can hardly expect local authorities to add to their rates in order to undertake works which will be of no benefit to them for years to come. Therefore I appeal to the Government to look with a more kindly eye on the request that comes from local authorities to increase the percentage grant for carrying out schemes of a national character rather than of a particular local service.
The Prime Minister referred to the kindred subject of rating, particularly as a suggested contribution, to the solution of the agricultural problem, but surely he and those associated with him know that the question of rating in industrial areas is one which has been heard of several times in this House and which has been brought to the notice of various Departments. Only last week a deputation waited on the Lord Privy Seal representing large necessitous areas. I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman was unable to give them any very definite reply. I was hoping the Prime Minister to-day would have amplified what was said to the deputation. You have in large industrial areas the ratepayers overburdened with rates-15s., 20s. and 25s. in the £— not due to any extravagance or lavish expenditure in regard to poor relief, but due entirely to that inefficient, bad system which the Prime Ministem himself condemned, due to an amount of unemployment in the engineering, shipbuilding and iron and steel trades, running up in some cases to 40 and over 40 per cent., whereas the average of unemployment throughout the country on the average of recent months is something between 11 per cent. and 12 per cent. Districts, with their unemployment figures increased double and treble compared with the rest of the country, have to bear the whole burden themselves with regard to the administration of relief to those who are unemployed and with regard to the
burden of the cost upon them of the unemployment relief schemes. It is true that the Ministry of Health and the Unemployment Grants Committee do. make grants to local authorities in order to assist them in carrying on works of relief, but the total of that grant is not more than 33 per cent. at the outside and it may be one-fourth or even less. The same point that 1 made in regard to the Ministry of Transport I make in regard to the unemployment grants which are given for unemployment relief works, namely, that the percentage grant is far too small and that you cannot. expect these harassed, overburdened areas to add further to their rates and their debts in order to put in hand works-of useful public utility unless they can get a greater percentage from the State.
This question, as we have been told so often, is not a local question. It is not the fault of the employers in the district or of the workers in the district or of the local authorities. It- is the natural outcome of the War, and certain districts are hit much harder than others and have to bear a much heavier load. The worse off the district the harder its burden. I appeal to this Government, as I have appealed to other Governments, to lend a more sympathetic ear to the harassed. overburdened ratepayers and to spend more money, not in unemployment relief, not in assistance by the Guardians, by putting in hand works of public utility-, carried -out in many cases by local authorities, thereby providing work, and not relief, which will be of advantage to the district as well as a help to the ratepayers.
There is a further point with which I should like to deal, and that is the cement contract of the Middlesbrough Corporation. The Middlesbrough Corporation made an application to purchase 400 tons of cement required for road making. The cement had to pass the ordinary tests of the corporation's engineer, and; the lowest-priced tender which was received was 43s. per ton as against a. corresponding price of 54s. per ton delivered from the British combine. To the astonishment of the Middlesbrough Corporation, they were told, as the first administrative act of a Labour Government, that they were going to prevent them from buying cement in the cheapest market and were going to compel them to bolster up the British Trust and Corn-
bine and to make the stranglehold of this ring upon them even greater than it was before. I thought- that it must have been an administrative error in the Department concerned and that the Minister could have known nothing of it, but in reply to a question to-day the Minister of Health confirmed the decision of his Department. The Middlesbrough ratepayers are to be compelled to pay 11s. per ton more for 400 tons of cement required in one month alone because the Government. want to keep out foreign cement. Why has the Ministry of Health arrived at that decision? In the answer which the Minister gave to-day he says:
 I understand that in view of the reduction in the price of British cement the Unemployment Grants Committee did not feel on this occasion that they could properly give a grant to the Corporation unless they used British cement.
Why has there been this fall in price? It is simply because we have been buying Belgian and French cement that the British combine has been broken. It is because of the free importation of cement required for our purposes in road. making and house building that the British cement combine has brought down the price from the fabulous and extravagant sums asked months ago. Immediately you allow the. combine to be free from the competition of foreign cement the British price will go up again, and the result will be that instead of having more work for the unemployed you will have infinitely less work. What does this mean so far as Middlesbrough is concerned or any other town requiring cement for road making or houses is concerned? The cost of the houses and the roads will be more, and there will he much less work for the unemployed in road making and house building because of the extravagant price forced upon us by British trusts and combines. We understood that this Government was out to break combines and that they were going to smash the stranglehold which combines had upon industry; yet their very first act is to compel the Middlesbrough Corporation, in connection with its unemployment relief schemes, to buy cement from the British combine, which will mean that there will be less work for the unemployed in Middlesbrough, there will be a much higher cost- involved in the work that is done, and there- will be a setback
to the improvement which was coming about.
I appeal to the Minister of Health and to the Government to reconsider the matter, and to realise that even if, by this Tariff Reform policy, they find work for a handful more cement makers, they will throw out of employment many more men engaged in the making of roads and the building of houses. The point I am making is surely sound Free Trade policy, which the country supported by such a large majority at the last election with -the result that Members arid supporters of the late Government are now occupying the benches opposite. Notwithstanding, one of the first acts of their successors is to go even one better than a Protectionist Government and to perpetrate this astounding piece of want of statesman-ship. I appeal to them in the interests of the unemployed to reconsider their decision. I appeal particularly to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Colonel Wedgwood), who knows this question as well as anyone in this House, to use his great influence, his sound economics, and his persuasive powers with his colleagues in order to get them to reverse their decision. I hope that when the deputation from the necessitous areas meets the Minister of Health during the next few days—he was good enough to-day to promise to receive them—that he will be able to tell them that he has been able to persuade the Cabinet to go back and to follow a Free Trade policy in order to allow material to come in without let or hindrance, and that they have decided to wage war upon trusts and combines and to make greater production possible for those engaged in unemployment work.

Mr. REMER: I find myself for once in agreement with the hon. Member who has just sat down, and also in agreement with the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), in protesting against the interference with the rights of private Members which is proposed by arrangement between the three Front Benches. We, who. are private Members, must safeguard our interests by every means possible, and protect the small rights which we still possess and which we have regained by the fortune of the ballot. I am, however, in complete disagreement with the hon. Member who has just spoken in regard to the Middlesbrough Corporation and its cement
contract. The Middlesbrough Corporation obtained an advance from the Government in order to carry out certain work for the purpose of relieving unemployment, and their idea of relieving the unemployment problem, for which purpose they obtained an advance, is to spend the money in Belgium. A nice kind of free trade! I think the whole country should know the sort of Free Trade policy advocated by the Radical party, of which the hon. Member is such a distinguished Member. The very idea, to secure money from the British Government for the purpose of relieving unemployment, and then to spend money for the benefit of Belgian workpeople! A former colleague of mine who represented Middlesbrough told me the facts during the last. Parliament, and it was owing to his representation that the unemployed people of Middlesbrough protested very strongly against British money being spent in finding work for Belgians.

Captain BERKELEY: The hon. Member raises the question of money which is spent in another country. Surely he realises that British money expended in Belgium has to be sent back in cash to pay for goods sent from here.

Mr. REMER: I am not going to be drawn into an argument on Tariff Reform and Free Trade, although it is a subject of which I am very fond, and I am prepared to take it up on another occasion. This afternoon we listened to a most interesting speech from the Prime Minister. That speech might have been made by the Leader of the Opposition, the late Prime Minister, or by the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), who leads the Liberal party. After only three weeks of office the Prime Minister has found that capital is of some value to industry in this country. That is a very interesting thing, because if we compare his speech with speeches made by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in his constituency there will be found a great deal of difference. I do not believe that the schemes which the Prime Minister put forward this afternoon will materially increase employment in this country. We shall find after six months' trial of the proposals made in the. Prime Minister's speech that the position will be very much the same as before, or possibly worse, and eventually the plan of
the Conservative party will have to be brought in to deal with the question of unemployment.
One of the most serious things that is happening in this country is unemployment in the textile trades. In India, Mr. Gandhi has been released from prison. Before he was put into prison one of the main planks of his platform was non-co-operation or the boycott of British goods. When they released Mr. Gandhi, did the British Government make any condition whatever that he was to stop the boycott of British goods and to cease advocating the principles for which he was sent to prison? It is a very important matter, especially for the electors of Burnley. There, Mr. Arthur Henderson will have great difficulty in explaining to the cotton workers that Mr. Gandhi is not really in favour of the boycott of Lancashire goods. I know factories in my own constituency, Macclesfield, which used to export to India, and which have closed down during the last two years almost entirely owing to the machinations of this agitator creating a prejudice against Lancashire and Cheshire goods.
What is going to be done for these unemployed textile workers? Very large numbers of them are out. of work or are working short time, and apparently no help is to be given to them and they are at present in the depths of despair. There is nothing in the speech of the Prime Minister to suggest how even one of these men can be found any employment whatever. Yet when they went to the country nit:, Labour party promised that they would find work for everybody, but they have not found work of any kind for a textile worker. The Labour candidate who opposed me promised that he would put all the silk and cotton workers in employment within three months after the Labour party had their chance and yet we have not had any scheme put forward which even mentions the textile workers or the difficulties in which they are placed and the trials through which they arc passing. Iwould also like some information about the Russian Trade Delegation. What kind of trade facilities are going to be given by means of the Trade Facilities Act?

Mr. LANSBURY: The usual ones.

Mr. REMER: It is well known that in the past administration of that Act
facilities were given only in the case of substantial people, substantial trade organisations, so that in case of default the Government could be certain that at least a certain portion of the risk would be recoverable. Will the Government give a pledge that, under the Trade Facilities Act they will not give facilities to people who are men of straw, and who are not likely to carry out their obligations, so that there would be proper security in case of default? I believe that this recognition of Soviet Russia is a gross mistake.
There is another matter which is causing a great deal of disquietude in Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania, three countries which I visited on a Government delegation last year. That is in reference to the attitude to be adopted by this Government with regard to the independence of those countries. I hope sincerely that Russia will not be allowed to invade or make war upon them, and that they will be promised some kind of British support.

Mr. LANSBURY: It is a good job Kolchak did not win.

Mr. REMER: The independence which has been granted to these countries should be maintained when the recognition of Soviet Russia is brought into force. I would also like to know what the Government intend to do with reference to the Imperial Conference? Do they intend to put forward as Government proposals the Resolutions which have been come to? Do they intend to put their Whips on when the matter comes before the House or to leave it to the free vote of the. House? Unemployment Insurance is another matter to which I wish to refer. The Prime Minister said that the money required would not come from the State but would come from the Unemployment Insurance Fund. I am under the impression that that fund is bankrupt now, and is living only by receiving advances from the British Government, and therefore it is a mere figure of speech to say that the money is not coming from the, taxpayer, or it cannot come unless the Government give advances which have to be met by the State.
We have not. one single sound proposal from the Government which is going to find work for a single person in this country. I believe that the programme
outlined is simply window dressing for the purpose of trying to secure the support of the Liberal party. They are 'trying to secure the votes of that party to drag them down into the mire still further than they are at present, but the Liberal party will have to choose whether they shall come over td this side or join the other side. That is the only future which is left to them. I believe that the efforts now being made will succeed, and that the Labour party will become one party and we shall become the other, and that the Liberal party will end their miserable existence having failed in their ambition as a party.

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: I am sure that the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Remer) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his gloomy anticipations regarding the future of the party to which I belong. I am sure that the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Foot) will agree with me when I quote a. very wise Devonshire proverb, "Nobody goes to the funeral of the man who dies often." It has often been prophesied, not merely during the past five years but before the War, that the Liberal party were going to be buried. I think that history will hear out me, and not the hon. Member, when I say that the Liberal party has always been home before the mourners, eating, drinking and being merry, and that that is likely to be 'the case also in the future.
I rise because one statement made by the Prime Minister fills me with alarm. I have not the profound knowledge of the Steppes of Russia which is possessed by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stoke (Lieut.-Colonel Ward), and I do not know that I am greatly concerned with them at present. I am not concerned with new Jerusalems in Palestine. Neither am I concerned with making new Gardens of Eden in Mesopotamia; but I am concerned with the statement about housing made from the Front Bench this afternoon. When I heard the Prime Minister say that the Government scheme --this was the only practical part mentioned by him, the only thing that was not made general—was to build houses at approximate cost of £500 and let them at a rent of about 9s. to 10s. a week, I wondered when the new Jerusalem was going to be built in England's green and pleasant land. [Hex. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members opposite cheer
that. I would remind him that at least one of those prophecies, which were made by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer when Minister of Health, has been fulfilled, namely, that the last Conservative Housing Act would do nothing for rural England, as he prophesied when the Bill was going through the House. I am aware that, in the recent. Debate, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer said that one out of every five houses built under the Conservative Act had been built in rural England; but I think that if the right hon. Gentleman had pursued his inquiries in rural England instead of in the offices of the Ministry of Health, he would have found that there are two kinds of rural England.
There is rural England, adjacent to the large urban centres, largely occupied by highly-paid mechanics who are able to cycle to and from their work and able to pay more than 9s. or 10s. a week rent. In those places it may be that a great number of cottages have been built under last year's Act in rural England, but the last Housing Act has been a disastrous failure as regards cottage building in rural England. Rural England will not be content if the new Act which is to be passed shuts out the agricultural worker from any chance. No agricultural worker getting 25s. a week can afford to pay 9s. or 10s. a week rent, not even for the blessing of a Labour party Housing Act. The Prime Minister seemed to be under the impression that there was a general minimum rate of 25S. a week wages. That is not so. There is no general minimum rate of wages. The rate of wages depends on the decisions of what are called Conciliation Committees. Many agricultural workers in this country to-day do not even get 25S. a week. More than that, even if we get the Wages Board—and I am sure that that statement will be welcomed in rural England—if the wage is to be fixed at a minimum of 25s. obviously nothing will be done to alter the conditions in the villages of our land. These conditions are well known to all who love village England. I wish to assure the hon. and gallant Member for South Battersea (Viscount Curzon) that whatever may be true of Battersea, the heart of England is sound, Rugby is quite sound. There is no question about Communism, but England is worried about the state of housing.
There are too many had houses in England. There are not enough houses. There is not enough land attached to them. That is clue to the fact that before the War two great industries, mining and agriculture, largely housed their own workers. We cannot look to the agricultural industry to house its workers in future. I would call attention to the dire need of improvement in housing in thousands of rural parishes. If the suggestion of the Government is to build cottages which will let at a rent of from 9s. to 10s. a week, then their Act will be of no use whatever to rural England. I remember, with great interest, seeing in the constituency of an hon. Member of this House an instance of the wonderful way in which people living in very bad houses take it. One old man, who had been living in a very rotten cottage for a very long time, invited the Member and me to go to see his house because ho said it had a teetotal chimney. We went to see this wonderful place. It was an old-fashioned cottage, built about 100 years ago, with a thatched roof. There was a public-house on one side and the chimney of the cottage leant away to the other, and his joke was that it was a teetotal chimney because it leant away from the public-house. Since then the house has fallen down, but the humour of the village labouer ought not to be taken as a sign that he does not feel that his house is very bad, especially when you are dealing with wages that are not economic. It is not the man who suffers most, but that most wonderful of all Britishers, the agricultural labourer's wife.
7.0 P.M.
I implore the House to face all the facts of the housing situation, not merely in the great urban centres, but in the thousands of little villages which are the real England
where the heart of the country lies. I hope that the statement of the Prime Minister is not to be taken as the last word of this Government with regard to housing. Indeed, if that be the predominating thought of the Ministry, I sincerely hope that before the Bill is introduced by the Minister of Health we shall have as much as three or four days' debate on this question, so that all the facts may be faced. I know there is a great disposition in Ministries to talk about millions and statistics. You can prove by figures that you have so many
houses being built and so many building, but that does not give us the kind of rooms or dwellings that can be obtained at a rent which each family is able to pay. I hope we shall have a discussion as to what can be done to give the agricultural worker of this country and his wife and children a decent house in which he can bring up his children in decency, comfort and happiness.

Sir FREDRIC WISE: I do not propose following the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. E. Brown) in discussing the housing problem, although he may be absolutely right in his statements. But I should like to take up a matter mentioned by the Prime Minister, namely, the National Debt of this country. It comes down to this, that what. we have to consider is what national debt a country can stand. The national debt of a country depends on the production of that country. I cannot help remembering what the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Wall-head) shouted across the House during the last Budget day. He said we had not yet paid for Waterloo; a very true statement. We have not paid for Waterloo, and I do not see that we are ever to pay for Waterloo.

Mr. FOOT: Have we paid for the Battle of Hastings?

Sir F. WISE: The Battle of Hastings is a different. matter. The hon. Member does not seem to know that the National Debt started in 1693, in the reign of William III It was then £1,000,000. It started owing to the financiers of the City of London lending William III money to fight France. Since then we have practically borrowed with both hands when ever there has been an emergency. Let me come to the difference between 100 years ago and the present period. I quite agree that the National Debt—which reached its limit, so far as I remember, on the 31st December, 1919, of £7,988,000,000 —is gigantic, but how is it that, although we had a debt in 1914 of about £800,000,000, that debt was the same as after Waterloo? Since Waterloo up to 1914 we increased the wealth of the country. What is wealth? I remember my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Colonel Wedgwood) asking in this House what was wealth, and nobody replied to him. I contend there are three sorts of wealth. There is physical wealth,
which is the wealth of the harvest; there is the wealth of labour, which is the work that every man or woman puts into manufacturing or commercial enterprise in this country, and there is the wealth of credit. It is the wealth of credit that has increased in such bounds since 1815 to 1914, and it is in that sphere, and in that sphere alone, that we did not feel in 1914 the big debt which we felt in 1815.
Our grandfathers and great grandfathers all had the same apprehension. They all felt that we were going under, so to speak, because of the weight of our debt. If we increase the wealth of this country, there is no reason why we should feel in 20 or 30 years even this big debt, as long as we redeem it and redeem it out of revenue. There is one difference between 100 years ago and the present time, and that is that at the present time we have an external debt. As you know, there is an internal debt and an external debt. We had not an external. debt 100 years ago, and that is our danger to-day. That is the debt of which we have not got the control. That is the debt which we have to see is faced and faced in the right way think one of the finest pieces of statesmanship the ex-Prime Minister ever displayed was to settle that debt with the United States of America. Unless a person is in touch with the United States of America or in touch with international finance, he will not appreciate how that sentiment has put up our credit, not only in this country but in every part of the world. The Prime Minister suggests the appointment of a Committee to discuss this National Debt. I wish that Committee luck; I do not see any harm in it, but at the same time. I do not see much good in it. If he prefers to set up a, Committee, by all means let it be set up. I think it will have the sympathy of the House. We shall be willing to listen to what they say in their report. If it is going to satisfy him in any way, so that he will in future consider that the only way of reducing the National Debt is by revenue and in no other way, I feel that that Committee, if it reports in that way, will have done real good to the country.

Captain BERKELEY: I feel we are all greatly indebted to the hon. Member for Alford (Sir F. Wise), on whose recent honour I should like to congratulate him, for one of his usual statements on finance,
to which we all listen with deep interest, because we know he is an acknowledged master of the subject. I was not quite sure that I followed him in his subdivision of wealth into three classes. It rather seemed to me that the third class, wealth of credit, was no more than potential wealth of raw material, plus potential worth of labour. Bat that is perhaps not an important distinction to make except in so far as he held out to the House that the ex-Prime Minister's achievement in funding the American debt was of such surpassing importance by reason of its effect upon our national credit. There are other considerations that are equally important. I have no wish to belittle the settlement which the late Prime Minister effected. On the other hand, I think that, in considering a financial problem of that kind, we ought to bear in mind that there are very important arguments on the other side, in particular, the necessity for not detaching isolated problems of the War and dealing with them piecemeal, but rather of grouping them together and dealing with them in one constructive settlement. I have always thought that what is known as the Balfour Note was rather a misunderstood document. It was supposed to put forward a plan, but I do not think it put forward a plan. I thought that all it did was to state a principle, which was that you should take the problem of reparations and of Allied debts, and since they were entered into as a whole, treat them in the settlement as a whole.
I do not wish to detract from my sincere appreciation of what the hon. Member for Ilford (Sir F. Wise) said in his speech. In particular, I should like to associate myself with something that I believe to have been in his mind in connection with the proposed Committee which the Prime Minister, in the course of his statement, indicated was to be formed for the purpose, as the hon. Member understood it, of considering the National Debt, but, as I understood it, for the purpose of considering taxation generally. The hon. Member will see that there is a certain distinction there. The Committee which was to meet for the purpose of considering how best to deal with the National Debt would, I assume, be a committee designed primarily for the purpose of investigating what is loosely termed the
capital levy as a means of bringing about the reduction of that debt. What I myself understood the Prime Minister to have in his mind was a committee to review the whole sphere of existing taxation with a view to readjusting it for the purpose of providing the necessary revenue for carrying on the day-to-day expenditure of the country as well as meeting our War obligations. What seems to be the important thing to bear in mind in that connection is that a committee of that kind is bound to find itself in a very short time up against the necessity of considering other problems of wealth. 1 do not believe you can isolate the problem of taxation from the problem of the National Debt and expect to get any fruitful result from a small committee meeting and considering them as isolated problems. It seems to me that what this country is most in need of, that what Members of this House felt in need of in facing the grave issue in the last Election, and that what the electorate was in need of in coming to its decision on the big issue put before it when the late Prime Minister went to the country, is some kind of general review of the whole trade and economic position of the country. That is something much bigger than a mere review of this tax or that tax or whether you want, to take examples, to impose a capital levy or go in for the rating of land values, or reduce the Income Tax by Is. or increase Super-tax by 6d., or abolish the Corporation Profits Tax.

Mr. REMER: Or adopt. Protection.

Captain BERKELEY: Certainly, or adopt Protection. You must consider the whole trade and economic position of the country in the light of the post-War world. and you must consider it objectively. You must not approach it with certain pre-conceived notions. I suggest to the Prime Minister that, if he is to set up a Committee, which, in any case, even with the restricted terms of reference he proposes, must take some months to arrive at any conclusion of value, he had better set up an authoritative Committee representative of what, if t may so term them, are the facets of our national life, representative of commerce, industry, shipping, shipbuilding, and banking, and a Committee also containing representatives of the consuming public, and throw the whole trade and economic
condition of the country, and, of course, the question of what taxes the country can bear, open to that Committee or Royal Commission, then call for a Report to this House and let us discuss what is the proper trade and economic policy of this country. I am sure that everyone who wishes to approach these problems in an objective spirit—it is a very difficult thing after the period of acute controversy through which we have passed in the Election—would be able to do so with such a Report as a basis for discussion.
There is another point of rather a different nature with which I am constantly wearying the House, but with which the House is in general sympathy. I regret that, in his very admirable general summary, the Prime Minister said nothing explicit as to the policy of the Government regarding war pensions. He took credit, and credit well deserved, for having done away with the abominable system by which ex-service men who are mentally deficient had been interned, as he termed it, in pauper asylums. That reform is an important reform and does the Government every honour. But there are other problems which are vexing the ex-service war pensioner very severely. On the day of our last Adjournment, I ventured to call the attention of the Prime Minister-elect to one or two of the more serious problems in connection with pensions administration, and I urged that before he met the House again these problems should be dealt with. It is quite true that the Minister of Pensions to-day, in answer to a question, referred to the investigations which his Department is conducting into certain grievances of the ex-service men, particularly with regard to dependants' pensions. That is something, but it is not enough.
I am sure that the intention of the country towards the men who were disabled in the War is not merely to render them justice, but to be generous to them, and that policy will not be carried out until the whole of the pensions administration has been overhauled and the Royal Warrant scrapped in favour of a new Royal Warrant, and until the multitudinous departmental instructions sent out from time to time by the Ministry have been put on the shelf. I do not say this in any sense as an attack on the Ministry of Pensions. Heaven knows any great public Department has
a hard row to hoe. But the plain fact remains that, as a result of the campaign for economy, which was so rigorously prosecuted last year, pensions are being reduced right and left, and people are being brought up before boards, with the result that their disabilities, which were formerly marked "Attributable to war service." are now being marked as "Aggravated by war service." One has only to make a speech of the smallest moment in this House to be inundated with letters of the pitiable description, not only from one's own constituency, but from all over the country, from men who are finding themselves reduced in their means and in some cases actually beggared by the policy of the Ministry. That has to stop. I credit the Government with the intention of stopping it. It is incumbent on the Government before this Debate closes to give a pledge that the whole pensions administration will be overhauled and cleaned up, and that its injustices and disabilities will be removed.
I want to refer also to the question of Russia and to reinforce what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) so ably urged on the Prime Minister as to trying the Export Credits scheme with Russia. I am aware that hon. Members opposite who have great experience of business, and some of them great experience of Russia, think that that would be taking an unjustifiable risk. We have to take risks sometimes. The plain fact remains that until we can revive the trade of the world to its pre-War bulk, we shall not deal with our unemployment problem fundamentally; we shall be dealing only with palliatives. I have nothing to say against palliatives. If you cannot cure a thing it is at least better to palliate it. We are a trading country which must live, to the extent of about 45 per cent., on exported manufactures. In the 1907 Census of Production it was shown that 55 per cent. of our manufactured goods were consumed in this country, and that 45 per cent. went out of the country to all destinations. A most important part of our national life depends on our continuing to export manufactures in large quantities.
I am all for the Empire development on which hon. Friends opposite are so-properly keen, but Empire development alone is not a cure. On the Continent
of Europe Russia is a. very great potential customer. In thinking of Russia we must not exclude Export Credits possibilities. What is needed is to get the machine started. I am just as well aware as hon. Members opposite of the difficulties. I know that the Russian Trade Delegation has taken up a most intransigeant attitude on these matters. The question has been greatly complicated by the attitude of the Russian Trade Delegation on the question of debts. I know that only too well from a case in my own constituency, where I was instrumental in bringing a very large manufacturer into touch with the Russian Trade Delegation. His plea was to be allowed to resume trade in the factory which he had built in Russia before the War. They replied, "Oh, no, you cannot do that." He said, "But you requisitioned a large amount of my stock. You signed the notes; you actually wrote it down in value. It was valued in my books at, say, 20,000 roubles, and you wrote it down to 10,000 roubles. You actually signed notes and gave me receipts for the stock on valuation. What are you going to do about it? "He was told that they were not going to do anything about it. It is a very serious position. But that does not affect the question of utilising the Export Credits scheme for the development of new trade.
I believe that we can very well leave these problems to be settled by some form of international arbitration. It is quite conceivable that it is not beyond the wit of this Government and the Government of Moscow to come to an agreement to set up an arbitral tribunal which will deal with the claims of one set of nationals against the other. That has been done in the case of other countries. That is the best way of handling the old private debts, as distinguished from Government debts. But, as far as the utilisation of the Export Credits scheme for the future is concerned, it seems to me that if the Russian Government will give us some kind of general undertaking that the goods which are sent from this country to firms trading in Russia will not be confiscated—[Laughter]—flon. Members may laugh, but they are perfectly accustomed to doing business on those terms with people whom they believe they can trust, and the Prime
Minister has made it plain that he believes he can trust the present Government of Russia, and I do not think that he is very far wrong. In these circumstances, if the Russian Government are prepared to give a general undertaking that they will allow trade relations between the two countries to be resumed on normal lines, I cannot see what objection there can be to extending the Export Credits facilities to traders who wish to do business with Russia. I am sure that to do so would mean a large boom in our exports, particularly in engineering materials, in things like locomotives and agricultural implements, and it might do something for our distressed textile trade. There is a great market for textiles in Russia. That is not the only thing which the Government ought to do with regard to foreign trade revival. Quite apart from the question of Export Credits there is the question of reviving trade with Central Europe. Our trade relations with Central Europe have been improving, but they are not what they ought to be and one of the primary reasons is because the Succession States have ringed themselves round with tariff barriers. As my Friend the President of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce told me, not only have they ringed themselves around with tariffs, but also with all kinds of absurd restrictions and prohibitions on trade. My hon. Friends opposite must know how that is affecting trade.

Sir F. WISE: It is loss of confidence.

Captain BERKELEY: The hon. Member must know that what I am now stating is true. I am making an assertion, and if the hon. Member is familiar with trade conditions in this particular connection, as I think he is, he must know that what I say is correct. The Succession States have not been content with erecting tariff barriers, but have instituted prohibitions of various kinds affecting manufacturers and merchants, and it is difficult to know from day to day what these restrictions and prohibitions are. Those concerned in trade scarcely know from day to day what article is going to be placed upon the Index Expurgatorius of exports or imports. The trader never knows from week to week what articles he may import or what articles he may export. To make matters worse, he very often does not know whether at the last moment there
may not be a prohibition upon his making a payment. That is the reason why there is want of confidence. I believe the Government have a great opportunity. The Prime Minister has come to his inheritance absolutely untainted—I hope it is not unparliamentary to use that word in the sense in which I use it, but perhaps 1 had better say the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely unaffected by the actions and words of his predecessors. He has come into office with a clean slate. I hope he will utilise the great prestige of this country in diplomatic negotiations with the Succession States of Central Europe who have an enormous population and who used to be very important customers of ours in the old days when they constituted Austria-Hungary. To-day I know they are anxious to trade with us, and I hope the Government will use their influence to persuade these Succession States to be a little more tolerant in their trade relations, not with us, but with each other. If the Prime Minister does so, I believe he will be instrumental in bringing about, if not a great boom—perhaps that would be an exaggeration—a substantial boom in trade in this country. I thank the House warmly for having given me so courteous a hearing and I express my regret for having detained hon. Members so long.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: I promise not to speak for more than a few minutes, and I do not think I should have spoken at all had it not been for the words which have fallen from the lips of the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken. I myself wish to take him seriously, and I do not suppose that the House has to-night taken him seriously. He has spoken about Russian trade and also about the revival of trade through the Export Credits Scheme. I do not know what knowledge he possesses in these matters, but he has laid down the law. I do not know that the hon. and gallant Member has ever done any trade with Russia, or has ever had any personal association with Russian trade, nor do I suppose that he has had anything to do with the working of the Export Credits Act Scheme. I do not think, therefore, that he need he taken seriously in his remarks on such subjects, but, at the same time, it is not right that some of the statements which he has made
should be allowed to go uncontradieted, for they may mislead the public. I happen to have the privilege of sitting on the Committee which has charge of the Export Credits Scheme and of seeing how it works. The hon. and gallant. Member in words which I have taken down says that this scheme should be utilised for the expansion and development of trade. What does he mean? The members of that Committee have been sitting for months, week after week administering it by help of the heads of great banks, able and prudent men. The Chairman is a man whose name is well known, for he was formerly a Member of tins House, Colonel Sydney Peel. We sit week after week and try to lend credit for the expansion of export trade, and from our experience we know that when the hon. and gallant Member tells us that we can, by adopting the policy he is advocating, use the Export Credit Scheme to expand our trade he is speaking in absolute ignorance of facts and is misleading the public into the belief that the scheme has not been put into full operation and that everything prudent has not been done to make it useful for the expansion of trade. The fact of the matter is we cannot lend fully the nation's credit under the scheme at the present moment. I am not betraying any secrets when I state that I received a notice in my mail this morning from the Secretary to say that there was not less than £15,000,000 of credit ready to be lent which has not been lent—although the Committee is anxious and ready to apply it to suitable commercial proposals to expand the export trade.

Captain BERKELEY: I had no intention, as I am sure the House will understand, of casting any reflection upon the administration of the scheme by the hon. Member and his colleagues, and the hon. Member has no right to represent to the House that I did so.

Mr. SAMUEL: I did not make any such representation at all.

Captain BERKELEY: What I did say was, that the scheme should be extended so as to deal with Russian trade. The hon. Member will correct me if I am wrong in stating that at the present moment a trader wishing to do business with Russia is not able to avail himself of the Export Credits Scheme for that purpose. I support the suggestion of the
hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) that it should be made so available.

Mr. SAMUEL: I took down the words of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He said that steps should be taken to utilise the scheme to develop trade, and he did not qualify that suggestion, in some of his remarks at any rate, by any reference to Russia.

Captain BERKELEY: I am within the recollection of the House.

Mr. SAMUEL: The hon. and gallant Member is within the recollection of the House, and I think I have correctly represented what he said. And he shall be answered fully. As a matter of fact, there is a very simple reason why we have not been able to use the money at our disposal, or rather credit, because we do not lend money, but we lend credit to British export manufacturers. I cannot pledge or commit my colleagues to this opinion, but the opinion which I hold myself, and which I think they would support, is that the reason is because there is no trade seeking credit which the banks cannot provide. There is no trade coming forward needing our assistance under the Act. Although this credit is available and in the hands of this Committee, the export business is not coming forward, and therefore the argument of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, that the Export Credits scheme can be further utilised to develop trade, is absolutely baseless. The uses to which it can be put are almost exhausted, because there is no expanding trade seeking help. There is no use in a manufacturer making goods if he cannot sell them or sell them in confidence of getting paid for them, and there is no use giving credit to a manufacturer if the goods he makes for export cannot be sold. As the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said, the basis of our trade is the export trade. What is the good of the Committee granting credits if manufacturers cannot do an increased export trade with the credits? Let the hon. and gallant Gentleman go to Nottingham and ask them there if they will make lace goods knowing that they will not be able to sell those goods and get paid for them. I say more power to their elbows if they will make and can sell more goods
—the credits are awaiting use for legitimate borrowers.

Captain BERKELEY: As the hon. Member challenges me on that point, may I tell him that the lace manufacturers are only too anxious to sell their lace in Russia provided that they can be assured that their dealings with Russia will not be interfered with by the Russian Government—I made this reservation in my speech—and provided they can get means to finance their operations.

Mr. SAMUEL: Provided they can be assured that they will not lose their money ! Who is to assure them of that? Can this House? Has the hon. and gallant Member ever done business with Russia? I do not suppose he has, yet he talks, and so does the Prime Minister, as though we were going to set our unemployment curse to rights by means of the Russian trade. What was the Russian trade before the War? It was never a big trade compared with the size of Russia. In 1913, one of the finest Russian trade years we ever had, the total amount of British exports to Russia was under £19,000,000, and only half of that was for manufactured and partly manufactured British goods. Of the goods which we sent which were wholly manufactured, most of them were trade from raw materials brought in from abroad. What was the other type of goods they bought from us? The main bulk of the unmanufactured goods of British origin was coal and herrings. People talk about the immense amount of Russian trade in British manufactures and in agricultural implements and so forth, but I do not believe I am in wrong in stating that the whole of these British manufactured goods represented less than half the total amount of our 1913 export trade to Russia. People who talk about the immense export trade we are going to do with Russia are, if I may use the expression without disrespect, talking through their hats. The total amount in the finest year, as can be seen in the returns, was only about £19,000,000, and out of that not more than £10,000,000 represent manufactured goods of British origin. Apart from that no Englishman ever cares greatly to do Russian trade. As an old manufacturer I hated the Russian trade. It is degrading to do business with people—apart from the fact that you may never get your money—if
there is also an immense amount of corruption and bribery necessary in order to get orders and then to get one's goods into the country and then accepted. In regard to pre-War goads manufactured for Russia it was often necessary to follow them over the frontier to bribe the railway officials, the station masters and others on the other side of the frontier, otherwise you might be perfectly certain that the goods would not arrive except after weeks of delay, but would be left perhaps in a railway siding somewhere, perhaps with a torn tarpaulin thrown over them, and exposed to and damaged by the rain. [HON. MEMBERS: "Under the old Government!"] Under any of them. Corruption does not leave Russia because the Tsar has been murdered, and the Soviets rule. It is the habit in Russia. It is as rampant now as ever, and probably worse. When, by means of bribery, you sold your goods to a Russian importing house, you would find that they were all liable to be refused or condemned unless you greased the palm of the man who took them in. The result of that is that decent men in this country refused much of such export trade because it was a degrading trade, and hon. Members who have had anything to do with Russian trade will bear me out. As an effect of this corruption, we had to deplore the loss during the war of one of the greatest Englishmen, Lord Kitchener. Munitions which had been sent over from America and elsewhere, paid for with British money, were continually being turned down and rejected on arrival in Russia because bribery had not been put into operation, and it was these rejections which in no small degree led to Lord Kitchener's visit to put matters right. That is the type of export trade which the Prime Minister tells us is going to put our unemployment right in whole or in part. Hut it is useless for the hon. and gallant Member, or other hon. Members, to talk to us about recognition of Russia and trade revival following it and to lay down the law as to Russian trade. The whole of it only meant ten millions sterling of manufactured exports to Russia in 1913. We know what it is, and it is time that those who have watched Russian trade should get up and in plain English sit upon the hon. and gallant Member, for example, for talking nonsense.

Mr. STRANGER: I crave from the House indulgence for a Member who has not spoken here before. I was greatly interested in the speech of the Prime Minister to-day, acid with much of it I agree. A great many hon. Members on both sides of the House agree, I think, with much of what the Prime Minister sail, although there was a certain amount al natural dissent on the Opposition side of the House in regard to certain points. One statement in that speech which impressed me was that from this time onwards it would be the duty of hon. Members not to vote so much in parties, as individually. I recognised from the commencement of this Parliament that such would be the position in the future, and that we should be voting sometimes as parties, but usually individually. I stand here as a new Member who has perhaps given fewer pledges to his constituents than any other Member in the House, and I shall, without consideration of the consequences, so far as my party is concerned, give every assistance to the Prime Minister, provided he is passing Measures which I consider to be for the benefit of the workers and the people of this country.
Having said that, I want to say something about the agricultural position, because it has occurred to me that the "Prime Minister, in his long and, if I may say so, very able speech, did not seem to give sufficient weight to the position of the farmers or of the farm labourers. I think he spoke rather too strongly against the farmers. The farmers, it is true, have their good years. Many of them had several good years in the War, and many of them, very wisely, cleared out of their farms at the right moment, about 1919, but others went in, and when it is said that the farm labourers are underpaid—and they are grossly underpaid throughout the country—it must be remembered that many of the farmers themselves are at the present time, and have been during the last year or two, suffering heavy financial losses, and are finding great difficulty in paying the rents which are exacted from them by the landlords. Therefore, when one talks about wages boards for agricultural workers, I agree that nothing is more essential than to place the farm labourer in a fair position with regard to his employer, and he is not in a fair position if there is not a wages board or a minimum wage to protect him.
Of the two, in my opinion, the wages board is the better, but I cannot lose sight of the fact that, at any rate, in my own constituency, and since I went to it, there are a number of gentlemen who have thought it essential to say "Because So-and-so got in, we are unable to pay the wages we did, and for that reason we are reducing your wages from this time onwards." [An HON. MEMBER: "Name!"] It happened. I did hope the Prime Minister would say something about protecting the agricultural wages, at any rate until the wages boards have been sitting, because the wages boards will necessarily take some time in getting to work, and in the meantime there are agricultural labourers in this Kingdom who, with their families, are not starving but finding it extremely difficult to get enough food. There arc many places in which meat is an unknown thing from one week's end to another, and where bread and margarine are about all that the agricultural labourers can afford. I did hope the Premier would have something to say about preserving the position of the agricultural labourers and ensuring that, at any rate until the agricultural wages boards commenced sitting, something would be done to protect these men.
There is another thing I would like to say, and that is that land courts to deal with the rents of the farmers are essential in many districts if the agricultural wages boards are to work properly. It is no good the Prime Minister saying that wages boards should sit in this district and that district and the other district in order to fix the wages to be paid, and then for the farmer to say, "I need not keep my land under corn, and therefore I will lay it up to grass." That is the kind of thing which farmers are saying in many districts at the present time. They say, and they say honestly, "It pays me to put my land under grass, and, although I am sorry for the agricultural labourer, I cannot or will not go on paying wages which I need not pay." The Premier has no mean of dealing with this situation, apparently, and I think it is a matter which certainly deserves the attention of the Minister of Agriculture immediately.
There is something else in connection with the working classes which I hoped to hear from the Premier. I think on many
occasions it has been said by the Labour party that it is desirable to reduce or remove—and I think they usually say remove—the taxes upon sugar, tea, cocoa, coffee, the food taxes, the taxes on the essentials of life. These things weigh not at all, no doubt, in the households of Members of this House, but they weigh very heavily on the poorest households, and the tax is the same for the richest man as it is for the poorest. It weighs most heavily upon the agricultural labourer with a big family, because when he has, as he sometimes has, eight or nine children under earning age to support, these taxes are a very serious matter. These taxes also bear heavily throughout the whole of the industries in which working men have a struggle to get the essentials of life, and one must recollect that the increase in price in consequence of the tax is not the amount of the tax itself, but something a great deal more. If you put a tax of 3d. a lb. on sugar, the importer of the sugar or the man who pays the tax on the sugar ha-s to put on more than 3d. a lb. above the pre-War price of the sugar he sells. It is obvious that he must do so.
Something has been said about the position of trade with Russia, and it is perfectly true, as has been stated from the benches opposite, that the mere fact that you have a recognition of the Russian Government is not going to bring about good trade. It is, however, a step in the direction of bringing about good trade, and that is, after all, the thing which most people in the country want to see. They want to see an improvement of the trade with Russia, and also of the trade with Germany. Until we settle the reparation question with Germany, we shall have no improvement in the trade with that country, and until we have some sort of peace with Russia, the recognition of a Government in Russia, whatever Government may be in existence, we are not likely to get trade conditions working well in Russia agree with what was said by the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. A. M. Samuel) that English traders have in the past had great difficulties in carrying on trade with Russia. Anybody who has had anything to do with Russian trade will know the difficulties of transport, of getting goods through to the interior districts of Russia, and of the very heavy
claims which have to be borne by insurance companies in many cases in which there has been a heavy loss by the English merchant in giving credit to the Russian merchant, but all that obtained before the War as well as now, and before the War we did a substantial trade with Russia. The position now is this, that by abstaining from recognising the Russian Government other countries in Europe, such as Germany and countries round about, are themselves building up a trade with Russia, which will do a great deal to keep England out of the Russian trade for many years to come. In my view, therefore, it was a wise and sensible step on the part of the Labour Government of this country b recognise Russia, from the merchants' point of view. Ask any man who has had an interest in Russia in the past few years whether he does not think that the action taken by the Premier is a wise action with a view to improving trade or getting trade with Russia.
There is another matter I wish to mention, and that is in connection with the cottages in rural England. At the present moment many country people are quite unable to pay the rent exacted for their cottages. Let me just quote the point cited by the Prime Minister to-day. He said it was a serious matter when the 25s. a week of the agricultural labourer was being reduced. It is a serious thing when the 30s. a week of the agricultural labourer is being reduced, and I was hoping he would have put the figure higher than 25s. He then spoke about the £500 cottages, which were going to work out at 9s. a week, including rates, and there are a great many people on these benches, at any rate, who stood aghast, or, rather, sat aghast, when they heard of that economic effort of the new Government, but even then the position of the poor unfortunate person who has 25s. a week in wages and has to pay 9s. in rent is an impossible one. The result is that at the present time, in many rural districts of England, there is an appalling state of crowding, and I do not see how the suggestion of the Government that there shall be these new cottages built is going to benefit the agricultural worker. It is not going to benefit very much the artisans in the rural district either, because this is the state of affairs, at any rate so far as the
district with which I have the greatest acquaintance is concerned, that you have there people living in the Addison houses, coming up to London every day, a distance of 40 or 50 miles, and going down again at night to their Addison houses, while the people on the spot are unable to pay the rents for those houses. It is not a very pleasant thing for the agricultural labourers to be living in little tiny cottages, but I assure hon. Members that at the present time they can go to districts not 50 miles from London and find crowding in those agricultural districts far worse than in the slums of London. I hope the Government, when it is considering the housing question, will consider the housing of the people in the agricultural districts.
8.0 P.M.
Pensions have been mentioned. The inadequate pensions bear heavily upon many, and I was sorry to hear that the Minister of Pensions to-day would do nothing apparently for the ranker officers, who, I think, are suffering rather badly as compared with many others. They themselves feel the position seriously. Many of them are in the ranks of the unemployed at the present time. I venture to think that some of the best men in England are men who are rankers or have retired as ranker officers. They have built up their position from the ranks, which has meant bringing out the intelligence and the energy of the men themselves. I hope the Government will reconsider the position of these men.

Mr. PALMER: Sufficient, I think, has been said to warrant me, at this first opportunity of addressing the House, standing up and pointing out to the Opposition the challenge underlying the Prime Minister's general statement, which they do not seem to grasp. Several preceding speakers, I noticed, referred to the present deplorable conditions, and the Prime Minister's statement, as I have understood it, is surely the greatest challenge to the sincerity of the Opposition to come to the aid of the Government to remedy the things of which complaint is made. I think I am justified in saying that the speech from the despatch box to-day was the cleverest challenge that has ever been uttered in this House to the sincerity of those who have made promises of any description to their constituents to remedy the present
unsatisfactory state of things in England and the world over. The statement of the Prime Minister is a challenge to the practice of distorting what the Labour party and the Government really stand for. We have been so accustomed to be painted in colours which we do not represent that when hon. Members see the true red of our party, they do not understand it, and do not correctly interpret it. The statement, in the very nature of things, was a general statement, and it is inevitable that the challenge will come when the Government work out details as regards unemployment, the conditions of agriculture, and of the wage standards in agricultural England. It is a challenge to that hideous doctrine, which seems to be the almost accepted philosophy of the Opposition, that the nearer you keep the man to starvation, the worse you house him, the more uncertain his conditions, the better and harder he will work, and the more prosperous the country will be. No greater fallacy than that could possibly be conceived, but it would appear to be the general consensus under which the Opposition and previous Governments have been labouring. If I appraise the speech from the despatch box correctly, it is surely a challenge to an entirely new order of things. In the words of the Prime. Minister himself, it is a challenge to confidence from beginning to end, and I welcome the opportunity that this House will have of considering any detailed proposals that will be put up by the Government to make this land fit for heroes to live in.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. ALLEN: I do not often have the opportunity of addressing this House, but I should like, in the first place, to congratulate the hon. Member opposite on his maiden speech. It is not often that we have in maiden speeches so much practical common-sense as that in the speech delivered by my hon. Friend. It is quite a pleasure to listen to a constructive policy such as he enunciated. He said he was one of those Members of the House who had made few pledges to the electors and on that, too, I think he is to be congratulated, because when he goes back to his constituency, he will not have so many sins to answer for. I think, however, -my own record is even better, because I never make any, which I think is very convenient. He dealt
largely with agriculture in regard to the farming class and more particularly with regard to the housing of labour. I suppose he knows as well as any of us that the ordinary idea of the farmer is that he can grumble as well as any other tradesman, but I think if the farmers took a little more interest in their labourers' accommodation, they would succeed very much better than they are doing at the moment. I remember a farmer telling me —he seemed to be a very prosperous farmer--how he got along with his labourers, and how his prosperity came about. He said, "I give them a bit of land. I allow them to rear poultry on it. I do not object to their having a cow on the land, or to their rearing a few pigs, for, believe me, the ploughman may desert his wife, but he will never desert his pigs."
There are one or two points to which I should like to refer as coming from a different part of the country from any other hon. Member who has yet spoken. We have a Government of our own in Northern Ireland, but there are some reserved services, and there are international questions on which we are permitted to address this House. A good deal has been said to-night, for instance, about Russia. Hon. Members may be surprised to hear that exports from Russia play a very large part in the prosperity of our six-county area in Northern Ireland, which, by the way, I hope will always remain so. It is by the large exports of flax from Russia that we ever hope to get our staple industry in the six-county area going as prosperously as it was before the War. In what way the Prime Minister may bring that about, I do not know but I wish him God-speed in his trial. There has been a great deal of theory in Socialist doctrine with regard to trade. A Socialist Government has now got up against practical realities, and the cure of unemployment, the Prime Minister said to-day, was to get trade going again. The only way, in my opinion, to cure unemployment is to produce articles and commodities that are required by the people living in this world. If we produce them at a price which the people are not able to pay, they will not buy them, and the commodities will be left on our hands. Therefore, I again refer to the possibility of our getting large exports of flax from Russia
and thus cheapening our commodities for the housewife all over the world.
I was glad to hear the reference to ex-service men, and more particularly to pensions. Had the Minister of Pensions been in his place, I would have liked heartily to congratulate him on the sympathetic attitude he has shown towards the dependants of ex-service men. I have had one or two cases myself since he has taken office, and I must compliment him on the energy he has displayed in bringing about a much more satisfactory state of affairs with regard to those few cases than previously existed. I only hope he will tontine in that sympathetic attitude in which he has begun. My hon. Friend blamed the Ministry of Pensions with regard to ranker officers. I think the blame really should have been attached to the War Office, as it was really the War Office that turned the matter down.
When the Prime Minister was reading from the King's Speech the subjects that the present Government were about to undertake, and the Bills which they were going to pass through this House, there was one I. hoped he would have mentioned. It interests my part of the country. It is the Bill that has been promised, not only in the King's Speech, but for the last two or three years—a Land Purchase Bill for Northern Ireland. That is one of the reserved services for this House. It would not cost this country anything. It is practically an agreed Bill between landlord and tenant. The Percy Committee sat in order to thresh out this question, and I do hope the Prime Minister, or whoever may reply, will say that, provided he is satisfied that this is an agreed Bill which will not take up any time of the House, he will undertake to see it is passed, because both landlords and tenants in Northern Ireland are quite ready to accept the proposal in the shape of this Bill. I hope, when the responsible Minister replies, we shall get some information on the subject, which is very vital to the interests of agriculture in that area.

It being a quarter-past Eight of the Clock, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 4.

COPYRIGHT (MUSICAL WORKS) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

Major BURNIE: I beg to move "That the Bill be now read a Second "me."
I do this in order to protect the innocent from the law and with no desire still further to complicate the law of copyright. This latter is very imperfectly understood by the ordinary man in the street. An Act was passed in 1911. There was a previous Act in 1882. The Act of 1882 compelled the publishers of music to print on the copies issued what performing rights were reserved. I was astounded at a case brought before me last year by some hon. Members opposite, and it was this, and other similar cases, which have made me bring this Bill forward.
In many of our large industrial towns we have bands composed of workmen who play in what is—I am speaking of my own town—euphemistically called a park. Those of us who live in industrial towns know perfectly well what such parks look like. The bandsmen in my town saw the advertisement of a firm of music publishers in London, and they purchased a certain quantity of music. A few days later they played it in the so-called park. Within a week they received a letter from the society which owned the copyright, and of which the firm of publishers were members, pointing out to them that they had incurred a penalty of £50. They came to me and pointed out that there was nothing upon the music which indicated to them that any performing rights were reserved. They pointed out that they had no money, and, as a matter of fact, half the band were out of work at the time. They explained to me that in all good faith they had bought this music from the firm of publishers, that they had made no charge for admission to their concerts, and that they thought it was very unfair that they were not protected from the act of the society which I have mentioned.
It is a very simple little Bill, and simply asks the House to make plain the position in regard to the performing rights, and to make it what it was before 1911. I suppose I need not assure the House that we have no wish to interfere with the legitimate rights of the composer to the benefit of the produce of his brain. If he wishes to reserve any right,
all that he or any society which represents him has to do is to print upon the face of the music the rights he or they wish specifically to be reserved. Then theatres, cinemas, and other similar organisations will know to whom they have to apply if they wish to perform the music with which these rights are concerned. I have been told by some of my hon. Friends sitting beside me that the law has been complicated by the fact of a convention which was held in Berne in 1908. I am not a lawyer—my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford City (Mr. F. Gray) will deal with any legal objections to the Bill—but I am told by those who have drafted the Bill that Clause 3, Subsection (2) which says:
This Act shall not apply to works first published in a foreign country with which His Majesty has entered into a Convention relating to copyright"—
is in accordance with that Convention. I will just put it into plain language. What this Bill is intended to do is, if a man has failed to make it clear that the performing rights are reserved, that innocent bandsmen in the North of England should not he prosecuted, but that upon the face of the music there should he printed what rights it is wished to reserve, and then bandsmen in the North of England and others, if they perform that music, will know where they are.

Mr. STRANGER: I beg to second the Motion.

Sir HERBERTNIELD: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now" and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."
I have been requested to oppose the Second Reading of this Measure, and, at any rate, to present to the. House the difficulties of the position. The Mover of the Motion has said that the purpose of the Bill is to protect the innocent person when he breaks the law inadvertently. My interpretation of it is that it is to enable piracy to take place the more easily from the musical author, and the brains of those concerned to be even much more easily picked. The subject is sometimes one for humour; but the law of copyright in this matter worked all right until the year 1882. There was no difficulty whatever about it. Then there was an unfortunate case brought
by a person who became assignee of a musical copyright. He brought a series of actions in a way that was quite intolerable, and the law was then altered. It gave the Judge absolute discretion in regard to the amount of damage and costs, so that an enterprising person like the one referred to was not likely to bring actions when he knew that he might be mulcted in costs, or, at any rate, that the damages might be nominal. It depended entirely upon the circumstances under which the publication was made.
The law was altered in 1882 to meet the new position. That is the condition of things which my hon. and gallant Friend opposite desires to alter. Not very long after that Act was passed a Convention met at Berne to discuss the whole question of international copyright. It is a strange thing that there should be absolute unanimity in regard to this question in the conclusions of the Berne Convention which met in September, 1886. I notice that the conclusions of that Convention were that dramatic or musical works and their lawful representations shall be protected during the existence of their exclusive right of translation against unauthorised representations or translations of their works, and that Article 2 shall apply to the performance of unpublished works. That took place within four years of the passing of the Act of 1882. In 1908 a Convention rather more numerously attended met at Berlin, and, after having considered this question of international copyright most comprehensively and exhaustively, came to the conclusion that
the stipulations of the present Convention shall apply to the public representation of dramatic or dramatico-musical works and to the public performance of musical works whether such works be published or not.
Authors of dramatic or dramaticomusical works shall he protected during the existence of their right over the original work against the unauthorised public representation of translations of their works.
In order to enjoy the protection of the present article; authors shall not be bound, in publishing their works, to forbid the public representation or performance thereof.
That was subscribed to by a large number of European countries attending the convention, and it was followed up immediately in the year 1909 by the appointment
of Lord Buxton who was then President of the Board of Trade, by a very representative Departmental Committee. I do not think for a moment that any hon. Member will question the authority or the capacity of the members of that Committee. The Chairman was no other than the distinguished judge Lord Gorell, and other members of the Committee were Sir Granville Barker, Mr. William Boosey. Mr. C. W. Bowerman, Mr. Henry Cust, Mr. Edward Cutler, a very well-known King's Counsel, Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, Sir W. Joynson-Hicks, Sir Algernon Law, the present Lord Justice Scrutton, and others. They sat for lb days and examined a number of witnesses and they paid particular attention to the question which this present Bill deals with. This is what they said. After having cited Article 11 of the Convention, which I have just read, the Report proceeds:
The most important change made by this Article is in paragraph 3 with regard to musical works.
According to this paragraph authors, in order to enjoy the protection of the Article, are not bound, in publishing their works, to forbid the public representation or performance thereof, whereas the first Section of the Copyright (Musical Compositions) Act, 1882, requires the proprietor of the copyright in any musical composition first published after the passing of the Act to print or cause to be printed upon the title page of every published copy of such musical composition a notice to the effect that the, right of public representation or performance is reserved.
Upon this point the Committee had a considerable body of evidence of which die following is a short summary:
The retention of the present compulsory notice was advocated by Mr. Arthur Boosey on behalf of a minority of the Music Publishers' Association, which was nearly equally divided on the question, and, less decidedly, Mr. Charles Wilmott and Mr. D. G. Day, the latter of whom finally admitted that his view was substantially in accordance with the revised Convention. The abolition of the compulsory notice was advocated by Mr. E. J. MacGillivray and Sir A. C. Mackenzie, representing the Society of Authors; Mr. W. W. A. Elkin, representing the official view of the Music Publishers' Association; Mr. P. G. Sarpy, representing the Societe des Auteurs Compositeurs et Editeurs do Musique; Mr. Herbert Lohr, Mr. Lionel Monckton, Mr. Will in in Wallace, representing the Society of British Composers; and M. Georges Maillard, representing the International Literary and Artistic Association.
The chief points urged in favour of the retention of the notice were that its abolition might lead to a repetition of the Wall
scandal, and would create confusion in the minds of the public, who have become used to the present state of affairs; it might also cause a reduction in the sale of sheet music.
In favour of the abolition of the notice it was urged that the requirement of notice should be abolished for the sake of uniformity, in view of the concensus of Continental opinion on the point; the requirement is an onerous one, especially in international relations, and logically there seems no reason why music alone should be subjected to it; it is chiefly professional singers that would be affected by it, and it is not unreasonable to expect them to ascertain the rights over the property they use; any possible confusion in the minds of the general public would be of short duration. If publishers wish the performing rights to be free, they could print a notice to that effect (as they frequently do at present), and cases of hardship could be met by giving the Judge full discretion as to damages and costs; it was not so much the notice required by the 1882 Act as the discretion as to damages amid costs given by the 1888 Act that put an end to the Wall scandal.
It will thus be seen that there was a difference of opinion amongst the witnesses, but the Committee have come to the conclusion that the weight of the evidence is in favour of adopting the third paragraph of the Article, and of abolishing the necessity for the notice at present required by British law.
It is extremely important, in the view of the Committee, that there should be uniformity amongst the countries of the union upon this point, and if Great Britain were to dissent from this Article, considerable difficulties would arise in relation to foreign composers, who might, in their own country, not be compelled to put any notice upon the songs or music produced by them….
Further, there seems to be no reason in principle why such a notice should be required in this particular class of publication, except for the protection of the public, and although at the time of the passing of the Act of 1882 it was thought right to put this obligation upon the proprietors of the copyright, it does not seem at the present day to be necessary to maintain it, the provision that the Judge shall have discretion as to costs and penalties being found sufficient to defeat any claims put forward in a harsh manner against persons who perform musical compositions without any intention of infringing the rights of the proprietor of the copyright.
Now I come to the last paragraph. I think I have been justified in dealing thus fully with the authoritative findings of a Committee of this House upon this subject. It reads—
The Committee unanimously recommend the adoption of the Article and that the necessary Amendments be made in the British law both for the purpose of con-
forming to the Convention and for ultra-territorial purposes.
I submit that that Report constitutes the strongest possible argument against any interference in this House, by a Bill which will bring us back to the old conditions that were found so troublesome. I am not going to inflict on the House the views of the witnesses who were called. I have them here, both question and answer, and they give specifically the reasons why music publishers held it to be desirable that this notice should be obliterated. They constitute a substantial argument for retaining the law as it at present stands, and I think the House should hesitate before, by means of a private Member's Bill, it repeals the principal Section of a public Act arrived at after full inquiry by such a Committee, and arrived at unanimously. I do sincerely hope that this House, young and inexperienced as it is—although I see the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. O'Connor) is taking a great interest in this Measure, and it cannot be said of him that he lacks Parliamentary experience—but I do sincerely hope that this House meeting substantially for the first time in the Session for the transaction of ordinary business, will pause before repealing, by means of a private Member's Bill, an Act which has been deliberately placed on the Statute Book.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: I have much pleasure in seconding the Amendment. When I started dealing with this question of musical copyright—a question which fundamentally lies behind this Debate—there existed an almost incredible state of affairs. A man in a little cellar in the East End of London used to obtain copyright music, produce it. in a cheap way on cheap paper, and sell it for 2d. or 4d. a piece, and the House will be astounded to hear that when musical comedy was being performed which contained several numbers for which there was a ready sale at 2s. or more by the author and publishers, the emissaries of this pirate were selling the same music for a sum of 2d. or 4d. The result was that many of the best and most popular composers of the country were being reduced to poiverty. One man, in fact, actually died as a result. of the action of this pirate. He had been in the habit of making £2,000 a year on the sale of his music, but in the two years before
his death he received only £4 2s. 6d. He died of a broken heart, and with a broken purse, and he left a widow and four children. He was only 42 years of age. That was the state of things that existed when I first took up this question. The emissary of the pirate could not be arrested. If he were challenged he gave a false name and address. With considerable trouble I was able to get passed through the House of Commons—after it had been adopted by the Ministry—it was then under the leadership of my friend, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman — an Act which, unlike most Acts, had an immediate and final effect on the pirate who was getting rich on the poverty, starvation and death of musical composers Then we had the Copyright Act.
Now we are asked almost without notice to change the law again not in favour of the composer but in favour of a new race of pirates who want to perform this music without paying the people who compose it. I am surprised someone has not come here on behalf of the gramophone people. When I took up this question, gramophones were able to produce music for which the singers had to be paid vast sums of money, but not a single penny to the man who composed the music. That was a case of wholesale plunder of musical copyright, and now we are asked to go back to that state of things. Remember that after all music is the product of a man's brain and to my mind it should he treated as the most sacred of all property. It is a creation of the individual and is entitled to more protection than any other form of property. Now it is suggested that a great change should be made in the law. My right hon. Friend who last spoke has pointed out that this matter is a subject of international agreement, and that if this Bill is carried we shall be quarrelling with the law affecting the rights of artists in Germany and in France. In fact, in an almost empty House on the very first working day of the Session we are being asked to make a change in the law which may bring us into conflict with International Law. What is the basis of my hon. Friend's case? You must be warned as to whether you are taking a man's property or not. I should say it is your business to ascertain whether it is his property or not before you take it. I might point out the defects of the Bill, and one of its
defects is that it is absolutely incapable of carrying out what it proposes to do. I hope that the House will either adjourn the Debate, in order that there may be a better opportunity of discussing it in a larger House, or that they will reject what I think is an attempt to take away from poor composers and musicians property which rightly belongs to them.

Mr. GRAY: It is, perhaps, fitting that I should make one or two observations with regard to this Bill, although I must at once disavow the intention, attributed to me by the hon. and gallant Member for Bootle (Major Burnie), of dealing with the legal aspect. I think it is fitting because in the last Parliament I introduced a Bill in all respects similar to this, and, in fact, I think I may claim to be the father of this Bill. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bootle is simply its foster-mother. I was able to carry the Second Reading with complete unanimity in the absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ealing (Sir H. Nield), who on that occasion was apparently not so observant and attentive as he is now; and, but for the intention of the late Prime Minister to commit felo de se, I should no doubt have succeeded in getting a Third Reading for it. There is one point that I should like to clear up. It has been suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, and by my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. O'Connor), that this is an attempt to facilitate the piracy of musical copyright. It has nothing whatever to do with it. I was particularly happy, as we all are always in listening to the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, and I was especially pleased because it reminded me that my first meeting with the hon. Gentleman was in the Lobby of this House more than 20 years ago, when I came down here to invoke his aid to get through this House a Bill prepared by me, called the Musical Copyright Bill. The hon. Gentleman has spoken of the scandal, and it can be described as nothing else, which we sought to remedy by that Bill, namely, that gifted composers, who were entitled to adequate remuneration for their good work, were defeated and brought to poverty by pirates who printed copies of their music and sold them at the entrances to the theatres and elsewhere, sometimes even for so small a sum as a penny. I re
member that my master of those days went to see Mr. Balfour and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), and 1 was sent to try to cope with the matter here. The evil which we sought to remedy by that Bill—which became an Act through the good offices of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool—has nothing whatever to do with the matter now before the House, which is quite different. Under this Bill, all that composers and proprietors have to do to protect themselves is to put on the music the words "copyright reserved," or words to that effect; but, even if they did not do so, no one would be entitled, by virtue of the provisions of this Bill, to reprint that music and distribute it free or for money received. What it does seek to provide is that, where a person becomes possessed of a piece of music, and merely sings or plays it at one single concert in all innocence, he shall, because some music has a copyright and some has not, at least have the danger-signal shown to him by those words being put on the music, as could be so very easily done.
Before 1882, it was not necessary to put on those words, and a man named Wall, who was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, was guilty of what fell little short, of blackmail, because he made his living by becoming the assignee of rights and then instituting proceedings, or—which was very much worse--issuing threats and not taking proceedings and obtaining money as a condition of his abstention from taking proceedings. To meet that case a provision was introduced in the Act of 1882 the terms of which we admit were unsatisfactory, and we have attempted to remedy that in this present Bill. In 1911, as a result of the Berne and Berlin Conventions and the Inquiry, a new Bill was introduced from which this particular provision was omitted, and one of the arguments was—and the same argument has been used, quite fairly, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ealing tonight—that the scandal of the Wall case could never be repeated because the Judge had a discretion. We are here to-night, and had it been otherwise we should not have been arguing this case, because there exists to-day a scandal much greater than that of the Wall case. There is a society existing in our midst, and, so far as I know, a legitimate
society, acting within its legal rights; but, if that be so, no society or individual ought to be allowed to act as they act and claim to be within legal rights. For that reason we are asking for a remedy. Some amateur gets up at, perhaps, a village concert, and sings a song in all good faith; and this society, which takes in every local paper, large and small, to get accounts of these concerts, sees that Mary Jones sang very nicely "Tit Willow" or something of that sort, and they write to her and say, "Do you know the gravity of what you have done?" The poor girl, of course, does not know, and they then proceed, not to take proceedings, but to state the sum they require without taking proceedings. The Judge, therefore, never has the opportunity of exercising any discretion whatsoever.
What would the average man do if he were threatened with proceedings which might involve him in a lawsuit for £200 or £300, if his position had been found out in advance, as it would be, and his powers and resources sized up and it was said that he could square his illegality for £50? Would he risk the proceedings and claim the discretion of the Judge or would he pay the £50? In that way a large revenue is being made, not only out of these individuals who sing at perhaps local concerts, but claims have been made against municipal and other bands which have been only too glad to put down a sum of money to escape from the consequences of their innocent act. Probably the only reason I regret that the late Ministry is out of power is that possibly if they had been in power, there would have been more on the Front Bench than there are now, and we might have had the assistance of the late Minister of Health. Were he here, he would be able to say he has been the recipient of petitions from a very large number of corporations to support the Bill. I did not introduce it in this Parliament because I held an official position with my party, and this was essentially a non-party controversy, ant; the Bill is backed, as it was before, by every section of the House. We have had the Berne Convention and the Berlin Convention quoted. Interested parties They represent the music world. They do not represent the unfortunate indi-
viduals who have had to suffer as the result of existing legislation. If it was put to the Conservative party whether they would chop off my head at dawn to-morrow, they would be united about it. But directly you mix up different people with different interests the unanimity would not be the same—at least, I hope not.
9.0 P.M.
But be that as it may, there are two answers to be made. One is that at the time of the Act of 1911, at the time of the sitting of the Committee and of the Conventions of Berne and Berlin, it was not foreseen that the evil that existed in the Wall case would, in the year 1920 and onwards, be reproduced in a much more violent and, I think, more discreditable form by a large organisation. Further, an attempt has been made by the great skill in advocacy of the right hon. Gentleman on my right and I think even greater, though he is not a lawyer, of my hon. Friend on the left, to say that we propose to change the whole of the law and, worse than that, I think the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. O'Connor) has suggested that this would bring on a European war. To that there is this to be said, that under Clause 3, Sub-section (2)—my hon. Friend did not draw attention to this; I have always been told that skill in advocacy lies not what you say, but what you omit—it is expressly stated:
This Act shall not apply to works first published in a foreign country with which His Majesty has entered into a Convention relating to copyright.
We desire to put an end to this existing scandal and, so far as possible, to save people from the serious consequences which, by reason of the existence of the society, follow an innocent act. We want to do it without interfering with any Convention, although I am of opinion, for what it is worth, that even if Clause 3 were not in at all, we could well pass this Bill without interfering with the conclusion of these Conventions, because all we do under those Conventions—which has not been stated to-night—is to give to the foreigner the same rights, whatever they may be—not what they were, but whatever they may be—which are possessed by publishers in this country, and no more. So I do not. think Clause 3 is necessary. What we want to do, and what we think we achieve by this Bill,
is to protect those people. If there is a slightest risk that we are interfering with the Convention, there is the Committee and there are the Law Officers of the Crown to see that nothing of that kind is done. I think the Bill should be given a Second Reading. If there are any defects, the Committee stage is the time to remedy them.

Mr. LAVERACK: I have listened very carefully to the arguments on both sides. I am somewhat diffident in addressing the House as, in all probability, I am one of the youngest so far as membership of the House is concerned. But it seems to me that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bootle (Major Burnie), who started by saying the whole Bill was a very simple matter, was followed very quickly by other speakers who led us to understand that instead of being simple it was complex. First of all there is the great principle at stake of justice. The last speaker has made a great point of justice, but surely, first of all, justice should be meted out to those whose brainwork the public enjoy. I was rather amused when the hon. Member cited the hypothetical case of Mary who had a little lamb, in other words, a Mary Jones who might possibly come into conflict with the Society the hon. Member has in mind. A very similar case to this arose only a year or 18 months ago, when a very infantile society, only having some three or four years to its credit, and barely past the toddling stage, tried to raise its puny fist at. the other society which I fancy the hon. Member has in mind. There was a libel case in the High Court before the Lord Chief Justice, and, if I remember correctly, after two or three days' hearing this small society had to retire somewhat ignominiously by withdrawing from the case. They were unable to prove a single word of innuendo or anything else, and I believe I am right in saying—my hon. Friend will perhaps correct me if I am wrong—that judgment was given for the larger company and the other side had to pay the costs of both sides. I do not know what the defendants' costs were, but I think the plaintiffs' costs amounted to something over £2,000. I believe I am right in saying that in the judgment the defendant company had to withdraw all imputations and to express regret for what had been said and to promise that there should be
no further publication of the offending paragraphs or articles, besides paying all costs.. That, I fancy, will dispose of the hypothetical case put forward by the hon. Member for Oxford City.
This is a largo question, touching those ladies and gentlemen who do their best to delight the public and, at the same time, to remunerate themselves reasonably and modestly. Those people are entitled to remuneration for their work. They are equally entitled to remuneration for the work of their brain, and they have the right to safeguard that work just as much as any inventor who may invoke the aid of the Patents Acts. That is a very important matter which we must bear steadfastly in mind. From the speeches on both sides, it seems to me that this is not a matter which should be dealt with in a private Bill, but one that should receive grave and serious consideration from the Government, because it outrages international conventions. [HON. MEMBERS "No!"] And it outrages several treaties. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Notwithstanding the dissent of hon. Members, I maintain that it outrages treaties from beginning to end, and treaties not as recently as 1911 or 1908, but as far back as 1844 or 1846.
Various treaties have been entered into by Great Britain with other countries, because it was found not only advisable but absolutely necessary that there should be some uniformity of action between Great Britain and other countries with respect to the great essential of copyright law. For that reason the Berne Convention was brought into existence. After that Convention had been brought into existence, and Great Britain agreed with the Convention's findings, a great Commission sat in London under the presidency of Lord Gorell. The findings of that Commission were communicated to this House, and, after very careful consideration and prolonged deliberation, the Government decided that the findings of the Commission ought to be confirmed in every single particular. The findings of the Commission were unanimous; not a single individual raised his hand or his voice to the contrary. The unanimous findings of that Commission, confirmed by the British Government, led immediately to another Convention, the Berlin Convention, I believe, in 1911, to which Great Britain again agreed. The great point of that. Convention—again I
speak with all reserve and with some hesitation—was that, the procedure which had obtained in this country prior to 1886 should be absolutely abolished, and that the original idea of inscribing upon every particular copy of music words to the effect that the copyright was reserved to such and such a person was done away with entirely.
At the Commission presided over by Lord Gorell, the overwhelming majority, if not the whole, of the witnesses, were agreed on this point, that there should be the elimination of that particular sentence, and also that there should be complete uniformity as between this country and other countries. The result was that shortly afterwards the authors, composers and owners of copyright met, and I believe I am right in saying that the great society which has been mentioned in this Debate arose out of that particular conference. I think it is a fact that the overwhelming majority of the largest music publishers, as well as the authors of musical compositions with the largest output, are members of that society. These people, presumably, know how to guard their own interests and their own welfare, and the labour of their brains. Therefore, if the law is in favour, if the Commission's findings are in favour, the British Government is in favour, and if the different authors and publishers of music are in favour, there must be a very hard case to upset. It seems to me that the case presented by the hon. Member for Bootle (Major Burnie) and the hon. Member for Oxford City (Mr. Gray) begged the question to a large extent. I support the Amendment, and I hope that this matter will be deferred to this day six months.

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Webb): This is a private Member's Bill, and the Government take no responsibility for it. The House, however, will probably think that there ought to be some words of warning or some words of guidance before we proceed to vote upon the question. There is a large number of concerts of one sort or another, municipal, Sunday school, Christian Association, band concerts, and all sorts of concerts, up and down the land, and songs are sung and music is performed at these concerts without any talk whatever of any obligation to pay for the privilege
of reproducing these works. Undoubtedly I have heard the word "innocently" mentioned once or twice. It is said that this is done innocently, but speaking as one who is not a musical composer—I have not taken to that yet—but who has some practice in other forms of composition, I cannot help wondering where the innocence comes in.
Still one knows that underneath the general question there is the particular question, and apparently what are supposed to be the author's or composer's rights have fallen into the hands, as so often happens to the poor author, of someone who has not himself actually composed the work, and those rights have been used perhaps harshly and in a way which we could not justify. But I suggest that we have no business to seek to interfere with the rights of brain workers merely because in some cases they are exercised harshly or unjustly. It is true that we have a certain volume of demand for this measure, chiefly on the part of those whose concerts have been interfered with, who have found some difficulty in knowing what works could be performed without paying anything for authorial rights, and those works for which they have to pay for such rights. On the other hand, this Bill is opposed, not only by the Performing Rights Society, which, whatever merits they have, actually includes a large number of owners of musical copyright, but also by the Society of Authors, which speaks for a larger body of brainworkers.
If this Bill were passed in its present form or in any form following the lines indicated it would not afford a remedy, or at any rate any adequate or complete remedy for the evil that is complained of. It will be noticed that it is proposed to give warning to persons concerned with any of these concerts by causing to be printed on copies of music the fact that the copyright is reserved and that the music cannot be performed without agreement with the proprietors. Therefore it is suggested that Mary Jones will be protected. She will know, if she is singing any of these songs which have printed this notice on the outside that she will be doing so with full knowledge, but she will be free to sing any other work which is not so described. But that can hardly be the case because the Bill is only to apply to works first published
on or after the 1st January, 1925. Consequently all copies of music which are now floating round the country in the possession of municipal bands and other bands, village clubs, or the bene volent rector who wants to develop music among his parishioners cannot be stamped now and are not required to be stamped. So I would point out to the hon. Member for Bootle that this is only making the last state of things worse than the first, because it advertises to Mary Jones everywhere that she may perform any piece of music which has not got the imprint, whereas the great majority of pieces of music which she has seen, or on which she has practised her singing, will riot be stamped, and yet if she relies on the absence of a stamp in reference to them she will receive a threatening notice from the society.
The position is complicated still further. At the present time works published before 1882 require no notice of registration. Those published between 1882 and 1912 do require it. After 1912 they require no notice. Now according to the hon. Member music published after 1925 will require notice. Consequently I can imagine that Mary Jones will have to take counsel's opinion to discover if she can legally sing a particular song. It is said that it has been a matter of dispute as to whether this Bill infringes any international conditions. I think that perhaps it does not infringe any, because it is not to apply to any works in any foreign country with which His Majesty's Government has entered into an agreement of copyright. It will not apply to music published in Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, and most other countries, the only exceptions being Denmark, Italy, Japan or Sweden. Apparently, therefore, this is not a measure of protection but of what I may call anti-protection. That is to say you are going to impose restrictions on British music, but works published in Germany, Austria, Hungary and France are to be free.
Accordingly, I am advised that if this Bill were passed it would make the evil worse rather than remedy it. While, personally, I have every sympathy with
those who wish to remedy the evil which we all have in our minds, it is not quite so easy to do so. It is suggested that the remedy ought to be sought in another direction, in the direction of the publication of lists of works on which performing rights are claimed. If there were lists of works on which performing rights were claimed by any society, it would then be possible for Mary Jones, at any rate, to know whether the work which she desired to sing was included in the list. Under this Bill she never could know. Therefore, I can only suggest to the House to take the path of wisdom and not to give a Second Reading to this Bill, because I think that it is impossible to amend it satisfactorily in Committee except by leaving out all 'the words after "that."
I would make this practical suggestion about it. If the Bill is not to be eviscerated in Committee in order to make it workable, then it would be unfair that this Bill, which by ingenuity has been put down for to-night, and has not been balloted for, should go upstairs and block the way of other Bills in which hon. Members are more keenly interested, and I would throw out the suggestion that hon. Members ought to close their ranks against such piracy which steals their chances of proceeding with Bills which they desire. Consequently, without saying that the Government attaches any great importance to this Bill one way or another, and, indeed, expressing only my own personal view, I am going to vote against it.

Question, "That the word 'now' stand, art of the Question," put, and negatived.

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Second Reading put off for six months.

ADJOURNMENT.

Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Question put, and agreed to

Adjourned accordingly at Half after Nine O'Clock.